


Polarization

by Sunshine_and_Science



Category: The Umbrella Academy (TV)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Best Friends, DaD sEnT mE tO tHe MoOn (Umbrella Academy), Eventual Romance, F/M, Falling In Love, Family Feels, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Friendship, Harry Potter References, Implied/Referenced Drug Addiction, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Implied/Referenced Underage Drinking, Love, Love/Hate, M/M, Original Character(s), POV Original Character, Romance, Romantic Fluff, Sarcasm, The Hargreeves (Umbrella Academy) Need a Hug, Time Travel, Underage Drinking, Underage Smoking
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-02
Updated: 2020-12-20
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:49:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 74,878
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26770930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sunshine_and_Science/pseuds/Sunshine_and_Science
Summary: Polarization (noun): division into two sharply contrasting groups or sets of opinions or beliefs. In biology, this is a concept that applies to the nervous system, to how we feel and react.Follow us through time and space and everything in between as we run, polarized, until the running has to stop.Stories of the Umbrella Academy's childhood and beyond, with a little extra someone accompanying them.
Relationships: Allison Hargreeves/Luther Hargreeves, Dolores/Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy), Klaus Hargreeves/David "Dave" Katz, Number Five | The Boy & Original Character(s), Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy) & Reader, Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy)/Original Character(s), Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy)/Original Female Character(s), Number Five | The Boy (Umbrella Academy)/Reader
Comments: 43
Kudos: 116





	1. The End as the Beginning

A/N: Hi guys! Welcome to my first foray into the world of fanfiction. I recently watched the Umbrella Academy and loved it, and this story had been bouncing around in my head for a while now. I thought I would post it just to share it with you all!

I’ve put a lot of work into this and hope you all enjoy. I’d love to hear all of your thoughts about this story and to see what you think I could be doing better. Hearing your thoughts will probably help me to keep going with this story, so help me keep the fire.

Also, I’ve named some chapter subheadings after song lyrics/titles. Let me know if you’ve heard/can guess which songs I’ve chosen! Or just let me know what songs you’re listening to now, I could do with some new song inspiration!

Anyways, away we go!

Also, happy birthday to our Umbrella Academy babies!!! :)).

* * *

_The first of April, 2019: It’s The End Of The World As We Know it._

I had often heard the joke that the moon was an egg, and right now I could see that analogy more clearly than ever before. Earth’s natural satellite had cracked like an eggshell, sending chunks of lunar material straight for us.

Today, the night skies were empty as the Earth burned. Space was down one member of its celestial community, and each second that passed, millions were killed in the raging, fiery red inferno that was consuming the Blue Planet.

As my planet died, I held on to hands of the most important people in my life. Debris continued to fall from space as a spatiotemporal portal attempted to surround us.

“Hold on! It’s gonna get messy!”

A few breaths later, and we were zapped into the void.

* * *

_The first of October, 1996: The day everything changed._

America was such a weird country. I mean, I think many people would agree with me, but this was the first time I’d been outside of Ireland in my life, so it was like I was viewing the country through a different coloured lens. Everything here in this new city was bigger and brighter and smellier and louder; it even made Dublin look small.

This trip was for my birthday, Dad had told me, as he had hurriedly piled some clothes into his suitcase at our home in a rural area just outside of Warrenpoint; a town on the border of Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland. Mum had packed some things for me as I played with my siblings, assuring me that this daddy-daughter trip was a special one.

Although I was only seven, I could tell something was wrong by the watery way she smiled at me, by the fearful look in her eyes that betrayed the happy countenance she was trying so desperately to keep up. When I asked her why she and my siblings weren’t coming too, she went oddly silent. My mother was many wonderful things, but she couldn’t act for her life.

My parents had always told me I was special, but I could do things that my siblings couldn’t, that _normal_ people weren’t supposed to do. It didn’t make me special, that made me…a freak, I suppose. When my special-ness showed, my parents told me to hide it, but there were times that I couldn’t. The day before this sudden trip had been planned, it had shown again, and while I couldn’t remember what had happened, I knew it was bad. Like, _really_ bad. This special part of myself had continued to show up more and more frequently recently. I heard my parents arguing more and more as these events happened, and the other day…well, it must have been the last straw.

Fast forward all the goodbyes and the tears and the travelling and the tiny little packets of flavourless pretzels, and we were in the States. Something was going on, but Mum and Dad had neglected to tell me precisely what. Mum had packed my favourite clothes and toys and Dad had bought me pretty much anything I had wanted to eat on our trip, but it was the necklace they had given me which had surprised me the most. On a simple silver chain was a small silver disc no bigger than a penny, which had a North Star engraved on one side of it and a Celtic knot on the other.

“To always remind you of home,” my mother had said as she fastened it around my neck, her eyes strangely watery as she smiled at me when she plopped me into our family car and fastened my seatbelt.

I was quite a bright child (clearly humble as well), so when she had said that the necklace was to remind me of home, it gave me the feeling that I maybe wasn’t going to be coming home anytime soon.

My dad and I had spent the most wonderful day going around and exploring the new city we found ourselves in, going and seeing the sights and the museums and trying some really great street food. But now it was past sunset, and the two of us were now standing in front of the biggest house I had ever seen. Light shone through the umbrella symbols etched in the glass of its front door, and even though the light was warm, the house itself didn’t seem particularly welcoming; in fact, it actually gave me chills. My father went up to the door and knocked on it, holding my hand all the while.

“Daddy, why are we here?” I asked my father.

My father wasn’t a particularly tall man, but with a sigh he knelt down to talk to me face to face. “Sweetie you’re not well, and you haven’t been for a long time. We’re here because someone might be able to make you better.” His grey eyes were full of sincerity, so I knew he was telling me the truth.

“So I need a doctor?” I replied.

“Someone like that,” he answered, his expression hardening slightly.

“But why does it have to be this doctor? I want to go home, I want Mum to be here,” I continued. As I was only seven, I wasn’t the best at expressing my emotions, and that resulted in some frustrated tears leaking out of my eyes.

“I wish that too, sweetie,” he replied, but this didn’t reassure me much.

A chimpanzee answered the door. Before I could exclaim my surprise at this, the simian just nodded at my father and opened the door wider, silently permitting us entry.

“Master Hargreeves is a busy man, Mister Reilly. His offer to you and your wife did not extend past his first visit to you both seven years ago,” the chimpanzee stated to my father cryptically. While I heard the words, I wasn’t really processing them as I took in the magnitude of this building. It was almost as if it was bigger on the inside, like that blue box was in that show Dad and I watch together sometimes. It was tiled floors and wooden features, with chandeliers that sparked ominously at me from the ceilings. The house gave me a weird feeling, as if to say that the house was lived in, but it wasn’t a home.

“I’m not looking for what he offered us then, Pogo. I _want_ his help this time,” I heard my father answer.

This place was a labyrinth as we climbed more stairs and walked along more corridors than I could account for, until we arrived at a door that was grander than the rest. My father squeezed my hand before letting it go and entered through that door, leaving me alone with the chimpanzee named Pogo. I caught a glimpse of a man with a magnificent moustache sitting behind a desk with a monocle on before the door closed.

“So…you can talk,” I said Pogo after a few moments.

“Yes, my master taught me to,” he replied, standing up a little straighter to show that he was proud of that.

“You’re not supposed to though, it’s not natural,” I replied coldly.

To my surprise, he chuckled. “Nothing in this house is normal, Miss Reilly.”

I furrowed my brow at his words. “So, you’re not the weirdest thing here?”

Another small laugh came from the simian. “That is a subject of great debate.”

I scuffed the top of my shoe against the floor. Dad was taking a while, and I couldn’t hear a thing he was saying to the moustache man. “Does anyone live here?” I asked.

“Oh yes, there’s Master Hargreeves, myself, Grace and seven children,” Pogo answered.

“Seven?” I exclaimed. The biggest family I had heard of had five children, so that just blew my little mind.

“At present,” he replied, this time with a tinge of solemnness in his tone.

“Pogo!” a voice shouted from behind the door, the accent undeniable upper-class English. “Send in the girl.”

Pogo smiled lightly at me as he opened the door, allowing me to walk through it and take in all the details of the office that I hadn’t been able to see before. The man with the monocle stood up from his desk and leaned across it as I approached my father, and I felt his eyes studying me, examining me in a way that made me feel like he could see right through me.

“What is your name?” the man demanded in a scary voice.

“Isabel, Mister,” I answered.

“You will call me sir!” he all but yelled, causing me to reach out for my dad’s hand for comfort. His hand found mine, but I didn’t know why we were talking to the scary man.

“You think you can help her?” my dad asked.

The scary man stood upright again and pulled out a brown folder from his desk drawer. He offered it to my father, who let go of my hand to flick through the file. “I’ve been keeping…accounts, shall we say, on those children born on the first of October nineteen-eighty-nine that have shown promising abilities. Your daughter is one of them, and after what happened the other day, your presence here to ask for my help is unsurprising to me. What does surprise me is that it didn’t happen sooner. She’s been growing stronger for some time now, and it was inevitable that something was going to happen that you couldn’t control for any longer.”

My father ceased in flicking through the file and fixed the other man with a suspicious look. “You’ve been spying on us?”

Scary monocle man sat down in his seat and shrugged. “That is neither here nor there. I have six children here who are extraordinarily gifted, and I have trained them to use their gifts, despite some difficulties. They are seven years old and completely in control of what they can do.”

“So, you can do it? Help her?” my father repeated.

Monocle Man let out a sigh. “If I had been able to monitor and train her over the same amount of time that I have had with the other children, then yes, I might have. But my offer was rescinded the moment you and your wife rejected it, even after I had travelled thousands of miles to that rainy pit you call a country,” he stood and held his hands behind his back, and he became a more imposing figure than I could have imagined. “But seeing your distress coupled with my research on your daughter, I will take her in.”

My gaze shifted from the scary man in the pin-striped suit to the comforting face of my father. “Daddy, what is he talking about? Are you going to leave me here?”

“Belle, I’m so sorry,” he said, getting down to my height again. I hadn’t realised I was crying until the salty taste of tears filled my mouth, and shiny lines down my father’s face showed that he was also silently crying. “I wish it didn’t have to be this way, but this is…this is for the best. You’re sick, remember? And this man is going to help you get better.”

“So I-I have to stay here?” I hiccupped through tears.

“Yes sweetie, but know that Mummy and I love you so much. This is the only way. This is the only way,” he repeated, as if trying to reassure himself as well and me.

“When I’m better, will I go home?” I said, rubbing at my teary eyes. The silence that followed was all too telling.

“Will she?” my father asked.

“If she stays here, she is the property of the Umbrella Academy. I haven’t had the years to train her like I have with the others, so I must implement and insist upon a strict regiment of training that cannot be interrupted,” Monocle man stated, coldly and stone-faced.

“But once her powers are under control, can we visit? Or take her home?” my father asked again.

At this, Monocle Man paused, contemplating his answer to this question. “We can figure out those arrangements at a later point. She is not legally my daughter and I do not wish to adopt another child, but she will be a member of the Academy. That means that she will participate in everything that name stands for, do you understand?”

“So, in return for helping her control her powers, you’re going to put her into this crime-fighting team of superheroes too?” my father fired back.

This seem to stagger monocle man slightly, but he quickly regained his composure and straightened up his dark purple waistcoat to prove it. “I don’t know how _you_ know about my plans for the Umbrella Academy, but that is the deal I am offering Mister Reilly. Now, I am a very busy man and you have wasted a lot of my time with these questions, so answer me this: is she in, or out?”

* * *

_The second of October, 1996: The day I heard a rumour_.

I had spent last night with Grace and Pogo as they helped me to get adjusted to the house, but I had hardly stopped crying since my dad left me here. The other children in the house had been told to stay well clear of me, so while they knew I existed we hadn’t met yet. Pogo told me that Grace was a robot manufactured to act as a mother-figure to the children Monocle Man had adopted, which had freaked me out at first before she made me pancakes topped with blueberries (arranged in the shape of a smiley face, of course) for supper. If you didn’t know she was a robot, you would think she was human, and when it came to finding sources of comfort here, it was either a human-looking robot or a chimpanzee. The kind of comfort I had come to know would be absent here.

Grace had also measured me for my uniform, which she had ready for me this morning. Pogo had shown me how to tie a tie when he saw me struggling earlier that morning, and that had set me off crying again. My mum always tied my tie before school, and knowing that she may never do so again reopened the floodgates that were my eyes.

The day had come and gone. I had mainly spent it by myself as Monocle Man-or ‘Sir’, as I had been told to call him-refused to let me meet the other children until I had stopped crying. It was now six o’clock in the evening and tears wouldn’t form in my eyes even if I willed them to; I had cried myself dry in the past day. I had spent the last few hours re-reading ‘The Lion, The Witch, and the Wardrobe’ by C.S. Lewis, which was part of my favourite book series.

My new room was nothing special. It had white walls and a wooden floor, and for now it looked quite sterile for a child’s bedroom. It hadn’t been lived in, so to make it more home-y I had unpacked my things. My clothes were hung up in the wardrobe that was almost the same colour as the floorboards, and the grey desk in the corner had been decorated with some of my books and miniature ‘Winnie-the-Pooh’ plushies.

I currently had my Winnie toy clutched to my chest as I looked at myself in the full-length mirror beside my desk, focusing on the red puffy rings that stood in stark contrast to my blue eyes. Both of my siblings had inherited my dad’s grey eyes, whereas I’d gotten my mum’s. While my eyes could cry no more, there was a pain in my chest from being separated from my family, and the subtle reminders of them in myself were the things causing me the worst pain.

My door was suddenly flung open, causing me to jerk upwards from my bed. It was only October but the nights were already getting dark early, so my ceiling light was also flicked on, causing me to squint at the sudden change in light levels.

“Number Eight!” Sir commanded. He outright refused to call me by my name, and instead had assigned me a number. While I didn’t like just being a number, him not calling me Isabel was actually a relief. If he had, it would have felt like he was trying to take my dad’s place. “Stand to attention!”

“I-I don’t know what that means, Sir,” I replied quietly. I wasn’t used to being spoken to in such a loud, demanding tone, and it scared me.

Sir let out a drawn out sigh. “This is why I adopted children when they were infants and could be conditioned appropriately,” he mumbled under his breath. He tapped his walking cane against the wooden floor of my room. “Just stand up and put your hands behind your back, we’ll get you up to speed soon enough.”

He moved slightly and I saw a dark head of hair peek out from behind him. As he seemed to notice everything, he noticed this too and stepped aside to unveil a girl the same age as me, in the same uniform as me, from behind himself. “Number Eight, meet Number Three. She’ll be one of your new…friends, I suppose. Neither of you will remember meeting each other for the first time.”

Sir turned to Number Three. “Go on, just a we practiced.”

The girl look uncomfortable with the task she had been given, but did what she was asked regardless. “I heard a rumour, that you forgot…”

And just like that, my mind went blank. I could hear the girl still talking but I couldn’t make out what she was saying. It was like my head had been dunked under water.

“Now Number Three, rumour yourself to forget that this ever happened.”

It was from that moment that I hated Allison Hargreeves, the girl who made me forget who also couldn’t remember what she had made me forget, and I hated the man that called me Number Eight.

My name is Isabel Reilly. I was born on the first of October, 1989, with an extraordinary gift and was taken into the Umbrella Academy at the age of seven.

This is the story about how the world died.

* * *

A/N: I hope you enjoyed this first chapter. Let me know your thoughts and some song recommendations!

Songs used in titles: _It's The End Of The World As We Know It_ by R.E.M.

 _Rumour has it_ by Adele.

SunnySci :)


	2. Party Like It's 1999

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's New Year's Eve of 1999. The new year, decade, century and millennium are about to begin. The Academy children have the run of the house in Reginald Hargreeves' absence. Shenanigans ensue.

AN: Hi guys! Thanks to everyone who read the last chapter. Getting a fanfic off the ground isn’t easy at the start so to know that I have people who are interested in this means so, so much.

So now we’re starting into the actual plot of this story. I’ve changed a few things from the TV show but they won’t be too major. I’m also going to give you guys a good glance into the Academy’s childhood, so the first lot of chapters will be based on that. I found it a really good place to expand with original ideas beyond the TV show material because let’s be real, y’all don’t want to read a fic that’s basically regurgitated every line of the show apart from what an original character says.

So hopefully you enjoy this. :)).

* * *

Chapter Two: Party Like It's 1999.

* * *

_December the 31 st, 1999: I said, I’ve been to the year two thousand. _

It had been over three years since I was taken into the Umbrella Academy, and despite today being the eve of not only a new year, but a new century and millennium, things weren’t too different here in our daily lives. It was wake up and breakfast at 7AM, studies at 8AM until lunch, training until dinner at 5:30PM. Normally, we’d have some studies after dinner or training with Sir if we were…how do I say this by sounding sincere and insincere at the same time…‘blessed’ with the opportunity to do so.

However, the importance of tonight hadn’t been lost on Sir. Tonight, instead of going to bed at nine o’clock sharp, he was letting us stay up to ring in the new year (century and millennium). He was to attend some fancy party and so would be away until the second of January, giving us all the rare opportunity of a few days ‘holiday’.

Tonight’s dinner was chicken with broccoli, cabbage, potato, carrots and gravy. We ate in silence as usual, but every night it would be the same. I sat beside Vanya at the head of the table, and every night _those two_ would make us try and laugh. Klaus and Ben would send us the most comical faces they could possibly concoct without Sir seeing, and we knew what would happen if we broke the law of dinner silence that Sir had hammered into us. Still, we had learned how not to break out into giggles over the years, but sometimes a peep or two would escape us.

Even if Vanya laughed, I usually took the rap for it considering Sir gave her a hard enough time. The fact that Vanya was powerless and was always so sad about being ‘ordinary’, whereas I would give anything to not be extraordinary, always struck a chord with me. The two of us weren’t as close as she was to Five or I was to Klaus and Ben, but it was nice to have each other. We were the two oddballs of the house, with Vanya having no powers and me coming into the house later and not being an official part of the family. I was a part of the Umbrella Academy, but I wasn’t a Hargreeves, and I knew that in the future I would be simultaneously grateful and resentful of the fact that I wasn’t.

That’s how it worked in the house. Vanya had Five, I had Ben and Klaus, Allison and Luther had each other, and Diego had Grace (and also Klaus, when he didn’t annoy him). From the day that I had me her I had hated Allison, firstly for what she did to me and secondly for how she acted about it afterwards. If the subject every arose, which it didn't, lines would be drawn. Luther would always take Allison’s side and, while I knew that Klaus and Ben loved their sister and understood why they couldn’t fully take my side in the argument, they would still be aligned with me due to our closeness.

Still, we were children and children in the environment we were in argued. It was one of the most normal things about this family to be honest. Of course, that affected my friendship with Luther, but you couldn’t be friends with everyone.

That brought me to Five. He was Sarcasm embodied, and although only ten years old, was probably the most mature of us all. He was quick-witted and sharp as a tack, but there was a sweeter, more childish side to him that he really only showed around Vanya.

I could never quite put a label on him. He was enigmatic and loved to push my buttons, leading to some of the most infamous rows in the house. The two of us could debate with each other for hours on end, and the thing was we liked that we were able to have that relationships with each other. We liked poking fun at each other and could roast each other in a way that we couldn’t do with anyone else in the house. It was weird; we weren’t exactly friends, but we weren’t enemies either. While everyone else in the house could fit into boxes for me, I didn’t know where to put Five.

Dessert had come and gone. Klaus had managed to pull a face that caused me to let out a single snort of laughter, which made Sir look up at me immediately.

“Sorry, choked on my water,” I replied smoothly, adding in a cough or two for good measure. I knew Sir would see right through my lie, but as soon as he went back to reading his newspaper, I glared at Klaus. He smiled back innocently, and I rolled my eyes.

Klaus was always the last one to finish eating. As soon as he put his spoon down on the empty dessert plate, Sir said “Dismissed!” and we all filed uniformly before getting out of ear shot and the chattering started. Vanya and Five went to play chess, a game the former was no great talent at, but played with Five for the company before she continued with her nightly violin practice. I had lost count of the times that I had fallen asleep to Vanya’s playing, and sometimes that had meant getting reprimanded by Sir for missing out on lessons.

Klaus, Ben and I headed to Ben’s aquarium. Most children would have a fish tank, but this house was so big that Ben had an aquarium. Sir had built it for a brief research project and was going to have it demolished before Grace interceded on Ben’s behalf and convinced him to give it to him.

While Ben looked after the fish, Klaus and I lost ourselves in watching them. It was something of a nightly ritual of ours, and it was our little oasis of the day. The few moments spent there, watching the fish swim back and forth without a care in the world, without studies or lessons to attend to, were so peaceful.

Yet it probably wasn’t the best place to bring a girl with electrical powers to.

Like the other kids in the Umbrella Academy, I had discovered at a young age that I wasn’t normal. I was able to harness the power of electricity, which was far from the most amazing power anyone had in this house. Still, if Five was winning an argument and being all smarmy about it (which was a good seventy-eight percent of the time) a small shock to the arm was always a good way to stop that. My power was mainly through touch, but I (I say ‘I’, but I really mean Sir was pushing me to do so) was working on extending the use of my power.

To any other kid they would have loved to have a cool power like this. To me, it was a reminder of what I had lost.

I had seen my family once in three years. About eighteen months after I had started at the Academy, I was allowed to see them for two glorious days in the Easter of ’98. Seeing as both my siblings were older than me, they remembered me better than I did them, but for those two days it was like nothing had changed.

When our time together ended, being parted from them a second time was almost as painful as the first.

I was due to see them again this year, but Sir was amping up our training. The older we got, the more we had to do, so who knows when I’d see them again. I did get a lot of letters from them, and I of course responded, but it wasn’t the same as being with them. I missed my home, and I missed being around people who sounded like me. My Irish accent was another difference I had from the rest of them, as while I knew not all of them had been born in the States, at least they all sounded like each other.

We left the aquarium and returned to our own rooms for quiet study. All of us were pushed academically and learning things way beyond our age bracket, but some of us were on a higher level than others. Ben and Five were the smartest, whereas Luther and Diego struggled a bit more. I was no genius, but I kept up with the material. I would never admit Five was smarter than me, but that was a common roast of his against me-which usually ended up with me shocking him until his hair stood up.

The night would usually end with his hair all static-y and he would ‘blink’ to my bedroom door and open it while I was trying to get to sleep. I couldn’t stand my bedroom door being open so I would get up and close it, only for him to do this multiple times to rile me up. Diego was normally the one to separate us in those situations.

The tinkling sound of a bell broke me from my thoughts just after nine o’clock. That signalled for all of us to meet at the bottom of the staircase in the foyer, which is were we found ourselves half a minute later. Sir was dressed up in his usual eccentric, fancy fashion, but tonight it was even more flamboyant. This celebration he was attending must be quite the shindig.

He eyeballed us all, the light glaring off his monocle as he did so. “I expect everything to be back to normal when I return in two day’s time. You have been allocated some free time tonight, and tomorrow breakfast will be at eight o’clock rather than seven o’clock. I expect you all to attend to your studies and training as usual tomorrow, and Grace and Pogo will be reporting back to me on your progress. Goodnight,” he ended sharply, and left just as quickly. There was never much softness or warmth about him, not really anything fatherly about him, and this just amplified that to me. My own father was kind and caring and everything Sir wasn’t. I felt sorry for the other kids that he was legally their father, and that they didn’t have the relationship with him that children should have. Grace and Pogo partially made up for that though.

The eight of us looked at each other and smiled. We rarely had the chance to be in the house without him there, but for a few hours we had free reign here. It was then that Klaus pulled out a cape from seemingly nowhere and hopped up a few of the stairs, which was when Ben started making trumpet sounds.

“Here ye, here ye peasants!” Klaus announced, the sparkly pink cape he now adorned sparkling beneath the light of the chandelier.

“Peasants?” Luther questioned, but no-one paid him any heed (not even Allison, for once).

“I do declare that now the Evil King has gone, we shall play-drumroll please-,” Klaus paused and pointed to Ben, who started hitting his hands off his thighs, “that we shall play-”

“Hide and seek?” Diego deadpanned, crossing his arms over his chest.

Klaus deflated at this. “How’d you know?”

“Dad’s gone, so it’s the only chance that we get to play games like these, and hide and seek is your favourite,” Diego deduced.

“I’m game,” I said, smiling as Klaus perked up at this.

“Yeah, me too,” said Luther. It was missed by the others, but I saw him share a secret look and smile with Allison. Those two weren’t exactly the poster children for ‘subtlety’. I looked away from Luther and Allison and made immediate eye contact with Five who stood directly across from me, who made a slight gagging motion in their direction.

Turns out I hadn’t been the only one to see it.

I gently rolled my eyes at Five as Klaus tried to not-so-gently persuade Diego to play with us.

“I’ll play,” said Five, slightly stunning us all to the point that Klaus and Diego paused in their argument.

Klaus looked at Diego and smiled, making the other boy cave. “Fine!” Diego said, throwing his hands up in defeat.

“Great! You’re ‘it’ for round one,” Klaus said quickly, running off into the recesses of the house before Diego could protest.

“Count to one hundred!” I quipped as I followed Number Four’s lead and took off into the house.

“Hey!” Diego yelled, but I was well clear of him at that point. I did hear him shout that we couldn’t use our powers (which was a given, considering some of our powers would give us an advantage) but hearing the zap of Five’s powers made me feel like he wasn’t going to play fair.

Spoiler alert: Five almost always won at hide-and-seek. It wasn’t hard to figure out why. He may act older than the rest of us, but the smarmy butthead couldn’t control himself. He was too competitive for his own good.

Ten minutes later and I was crouched in my hiding spot. It was in a dark alcove that personally I thought was the perfect place to hide, but I’d seen at least three of the other kids pass me by, including Allison and Luther, who were evidently hiding together or sneaking off. I didn’t care enough to wonder which of those two options were true.

A flash of blue light down the hall from me had me gritting my teeth. “Oh Bella-Bella,” Five sang. Him being so good at hide-and-seek meant that he would try and warp around the house to find all of us before the person who was actually ‘it’ did, which was just him trying to flex how great his power was compared to ours. Those debates would end up with Allison rumouring him into punching himself in the face, Ben slapping him with a tentacle, or me shocking him. Despite my dislike of Allison, it was always funny to watch someone punch themselves in the face.

That dislike stemmed from my first interaction with her. I knew she had made me forget something, but that wasn’t the worst part if it. The worst part was that she couldn’t remember what she’d made me forget and I resented her for that.

I barely breathed as Five got closer to my hiding spot. He was so light on his feet that you had to really listen out to hear him, and it was rare that a creaky floorboard would betray him. He could sneak up on you and you wouldn’t even know.

“Oh come on, Sparky. You’re smarter than to hide _there_ ,” he chided.

I hate him I hate him I hate him I ha-

“Boo!”

I couldn’t stop the shout escaping me when he placed his hands on my shoulders. I turned around in the tiny alcove to face him-how he had even gotten there surprised me; there was plenty of room for one person but the space seemed significantly smaller when sharing it with another person. There was barely an inch of space between us like this.

“Stop doing that!” I cried at him, whacking him in the arm as he laughed. “You’re-” _whack_. “not-” _whack_. “-funny!”

“Every time, it gets you every time,” he replied, his laughter subsiding into amusement as he spoke.

The two of us heard footsteps in the distance. _Diego_.

I looked at him as he smirked evilly. “Have fun losing!” Five chimed, raising up his hand to wave goodbye to me mockingly.

“You eejit! You’re gonna make me lose again, that’s not fair!” I protested.

“The unluck of the Irish,” he lilted, the smirk becoming lopsided and creeping up the left side of his face. That was when I knew he was about to jump.

“That’s not even a thing!” I whisper shouted at him. The smirk only increased as a blue light started to appear, and with Diego’s footsteps getting closer, I did the only thing I could think of.

I grabbed onto Five.

The two of us were pulled into a portal and I can genuinely say that it was one of the worst experiences of my life. It felt like my whole body was being put through a mangle, squeezed and crushed to the point where I couldn’t breathe. The whole process couldn’t have lasted longer than a few seconds, but it felt like so much longer. The next thing I knew was the squeezing sensation suddenly lifting from my body as I landed hard on something.

“Oof!” was the sound that escaped me as all the air in my lungs was expelled. “Ow,” I moaned, moving my hands to my head to cover my eyes, which felt that like they were glued shut, “what the hell just happened?” I said through gasps. My body hitting the floor coupled with the jump had caused me to become badly winded.

I could sense Five’s presence and heard his heavy breathing, but he didn’t respond. Instead I let my suddenly hypersensitive senses take over; everything was heightened. I could feel cold tiles beneath me as I lay in a foetal position. I smelt the faint waft of chocolate chip cookies in the air. I must be in the kitchen…but moments ago I was on the opposite side of the house. A coughing fit wracked my body and it felt like my lungs were on fire, but that fire was quickly dissipating.

“I’ve-I’ve never been able to do that before,” Five said in amazement.

“I am in pain,” I whined, trying to draw his attention to me. Slowly, I managed to sit up and open my eyes. Every movement I made felt like it took a colossal amount of energy and my muscles protested greatly at their use.

In the dim light of the kitchen I saw Five looking at his hands in wonder. “Five? What’s going on?”

Finally, his gaze flicked to me. “I’ve never been able to jump with someone else before,” he stated, lowering his hands. In a flash he was behind me and slipped his arms under mine to pull me to my feet. In response, my legs nearly gave out and I landed hard onto a nearby chair.

“What do you mean by that?” I asked him, sweat forming on my forehead. Five knelt down in front of me, his eyes washing over me in contemplation.

“When I jump, it’s always been just me. When I was younger and starting to use my powers, it often meant I would leave my clothes behind me,” he started, but I started to laugh (and consequently start coughing) which interrupted his train of thought. “What’s so funny?”

“Sorry, but I’m just thinking about how grateful I am that I wasn’t part of this house when that was happening,” I chuckled, thinking of a tiny Five teleporting and ending up in his birthday suit. He knew that was exactly what I was thinking about and he lightly swatted my knee in response.

“Shut up, it was just a phase. Anyway, so as I got older and better I could bring stuff with me-”

“Including your clothes,” I butted in, not understanding why this was amusing me.

Five rolled his eyes but picked up where he had left off. “And now I’ve been working on bringing more stuff with me when I jump. I started with a nickel, and then a bouncy ball, working my way up to bring bigger objects with me. I’d always imagined that one day I’d be able to bring someone with me, but-”

“You didn’t expect it to be so soon,” I finished for him. He nodded in response. I put a hand on my forehead and swiped away the sweat that was there and realised that all that pain I had initially been in was starting to fade away. Light brown wisps of my hair stuck to my face from the sweat, so I pulled my hair back in a low ponytail.

“I haven’t even tried this with a mannequin before-that’s the stage I’ve been working towards. The train of thought was if I could bring a life-sized mannequin with me-”

“You could take another person,” I finished once again for him. He looked annoyed at this for a moment before a small grin made its way on to his face.

“Do you want to finish all of my sentences from now on? It’d save me a lot of time and effort if you did.”

I lightly swatted his arm. “Shut up and get me a glass of water.”

“What’s the magic word?”

“Now, Bouncy Boy,” I quipped. It was a play on the fact that his power was based on his ‘jumps’ but I couldn’t take credit for the nickname; that was all Diego.

Five had grabbed a glass and turned on the kitchen sink’s tap. “How do you feel?” he asked me as the glass filled with water.

“If I could rate it, I’d rate it a minus one hundred out of ten,” I replied as he turned off the tap, the squeaking noise it made ringing through my head and making me cringe. “Would not recommend to a friend.”

Five pulled out the chair beside me, placing one of his feet on the wooden frame of mine as he leaned forwards to observe me. “I’m sorry,” he said sincerely, setting down the glass of water on the table.

The surprise must have flooded on to my face. “Is the world ending? Could I record that, or get it in writing?” I quipped in amazement, watching as he smiled and rolled his eyes. Five rarely apologised to anyone, so this was something special.

“Haha, very funny. But seriously, could you describe it to me?”

I picked up the glass of water and downed about half of it. “This jump stuff is thirsty work,” I replied, settling the glass down with a small ‘clink’ as it hit the table. “The best way to describe it was like one of Luther’s bear hugs. I just felt squished and-”

“A lot of pressure? Like you couldn’t breathe and your body was like a squeezed tube of toothpaste?”

“Now who’s the one interrupting,” I jested, drinking from my glass again. “But yeah, that’s exactly how it feels.” Five’s head dropped slightly and suddenly it all clicked. “Wait, is that what you feel every time you jump?”

The small nodding of his head answered my query. “I’ve gotten used to it, and maybe it felt worse for you because there were two of us and it was your first time, but yeah.”

The two of us sat in silence as I finished drinking my water. “So, let me ask you a potentially scary question,” I started, licking my lips as his eyes met mine. “What…what happens when you bring stuff with you? Does it get left behind, do you lose it, do you bring it through?”

Five linked his hands together in front of him in thought, but I knew he already knew his answer and was just trying to phrase it so it didn’t scare me as much. “When I make the step to bring bigger stuff with me…sometimes it does get lost in the jump. Or I’ll arrive on the other side with half of it missing. I’m not telling you this to scare you, but I think you’d rather that I was honest with you rather than sugar-coating it.”

Geez. Any of those things could have happened to me. “But it worked, right?” I replied, and his eyes lit up.

“This opens up so many possibilities,” he mused aloud, mainly to himself rather than to me, “it shows that I’m on the right track.”

My brow furrowed in confusion. “Right track to what?” I asked.

“To getting stronger,” he replied. A simple enough explanation, but still, I felt like there was more to his answer than what I could understand.

I looked at the watch on my wrist. “Five, it’s after eleven.”

He let out a huff of breath. “How can it take him this long to find everyone?” he said frustratedly.

Grace must have left a bowl of cream leftover from dessert on the table. I dipped my finger in and poked Five in the nose with it. “Not all of us can cheat like you can, Five,” I replied, a mischievous glint in my eyes.

Five was slightly disgusted with my actions. “You’re such a child,” he fired at me, taking out his pocket handkerchief and dabbing away the cream.

“So are you!”

Five stood up, smirked and scooped out a handful of cream. “So, it’d be childish of me to, I don’t know…throw this in your face?”

The almost evil look on his face told me he wasn’t bluffing. “Five I swear-”

 _Splat_.

Cream went everywhere.

“Oh, you asked for it,” I replied, a fire starting in my belly. I scooped out cream from the bowl and threw it at him, cream splattering all over his face and uniform.

“Aha! I’ve found you both!” came a triumphant voice from the door.

Five and I paused, our hands covered with melting cream. We shared a look, nodded and began pelting Diego with cream.

For thirty seconds, we were just kids-real, normal kids-playing a game and messing around like we should be. Five dipped his hand into a puddle of melted cream and smeared it all over my face, laughing as I stared at him in shock while it dripped down my face Diego forgot about the cream in his hand and ended up rubbing it through his hair while I plopped some cream into Five’s ear.

Sometimes, being a part of this household wasn’t so bad.

* * *

Pogo and Grace eventually found us. The cream had started to clot and smell and the cream in Diego’s hair had started to congeal. The game of hide-and-seek was declared over with Vanya coming out as the winner as the three of us who had been in the kitchen got cleaned up.

It was half past eleven when I’d finished washing my hair and putting on clothes that were mercifully very clean and not sticky. A simple green jumper and black leggings were in order for tonight, with unmatched fluffy socks adorning my feet. I slipped and slid down the corridors of the house in my fluffy socks, letting out small ‘woops’ when my balance nearly failed me and I went tumbling to the floor.

I heard a rumble of footsteps as I approached my room, which was opposite Diego’s room and beside Vanya’s. Luther, Allison, Klaus and Vanya were all heading up the stairs towards the roof.

“Come on Isabel! We’re going to watch the fireworks,” said Luther, halting in his tracks for barely a second as he spoke to me.

I took a run up and slid towards the stairs they had gone up. A door opened to my left and a figure darted out, surprising me and causing my feet to go out from under me. A hand grabbed mine just in the nick of time, stopping my descent.

“Ben,” I breathed, my heart pounding in my ears.

“You alright?” he said, gently helping me to my feet.

“Yeah, thanks to you,” I replied, smoothing down my clothes.

Things with Ben had been…weird recently. The two of us were close, but Klaus was the glue of our little posse. I think you know where I’m going with this, seeing as we were getting to that age were we were starting to ‘find’ ourselves and figure some stuff out.

In short, I think Ben might have a little crush on me, and that crush wasn’t one-sided. It had been a very recent development but I couldn’t deny that there were feelings involved. It was a childish fancy but still…it was there. Ben was quite quiet but up until now we’d been able to chat away to each other-now it was just a little awkward.

“So uh, are you excited?” Ben stiltedly asked me.

“For the fireworks?” I questioned. He nodded. “Yeah, I guess. I can’t remember the last time I stayed up this late.”

An awkward silence fell. All I could focus on was that Ben was _still_ holding onto my hand. Blue light then filled the corridor and Five popped out of a portal. His arrival had also startled myself and Ben and I pulled my hand away from his like I’d been caught doing something I shouldn’t.

“We should head on up,” Ben said.

“Good idea, we don’t want to miss the start of it,” I replied, swallowing a lump that had suddenly formed in my throat.

Five stormed passed the two of us before we could move. He moved with a slight stiffness like his joints had frozen a little and his face was blank.

“Five-” I started to say as he stomped up the stairs but he jumped through a portal before I could say anything more.

“What’s his problem?” Ben said slightly bitterly.

“I have no idea,” I mused aloud. And that was true, I had no idea what could have caused Five’s mood to change from the happy boy I’d thrown cream at to this dark and stormy person. Alas, Ben and I climbed the stairs to the roof and watched as the fireworks began to light up the sky.

* * *

_The first of January 2000: 12:14 AM._

It had been twenty minutes and the fireworks were still popping up. They weren’t coming as frequently as they had once the clock had hit midnight, but a couple were still illuminating the night sky. Klaus had held mine and Ben’s hands as we counted down into the new year while Luther and Allison stood together, arms linked together. I had turned to Five, who had stood at a distance from us with Vanya and mimicked his gagging motion from earlier, but his face remained impassive. He barely looked at me so I turned away and enjoyed watching the fireworks with Klaus and Ben.

Grace had insisted we go to bed at five after midnight, but Pogo was a little less stringent with that. Luther and Allison snuck away soon after Grace took Diego and Vanya to bed, leaving Klaus, Ben, Five and I on the roof. All who remained (except for Five) were lying on the cape Klaus had worn earlier as we looked into the night sky, watching as fireworks exploded in bright colours and sparkles and observing the stars and moon in the intervals.

Klaus and Ben were passed out cold despite the cracks and booms from the fireworks echoing through the night. The sky was incredibly clear and I could see across the whole city, which was not a view I got to see often. I turned my head to the side and saw Five standing at the corner of the roof, his hands clasped in front of him as his elbows balanced on the concrete of the wall.

I stood and went over to him. He was clearly deep in thought and didn’t even acknowledge me for a few moments when I stood next to him, mirroring how he stood.

“Happy new year,” I said, nudging him with my elbow. Silence. “I see you got all the cream off.” Still, he remained silent, his eyes fixed on a point far off in the distance. I turned side-on to the wall with one arm propped against it, which held up my head as I studied him. “Five,” I said gently, carefully placing my hand on his shoulder, “you’ve never gone this long without making a sarcastic remark. What’s going on?”

That broke him out of his trance. He shoved his hands in his pockets but continued to stare out into the city. “Do you believe in love?” he asked me.

And that…caught me off guard to say the least. I let out a long sigh. “It depends. What kind of love do you mean?”

“I mean,” he said, whirring around to face me. The look on his face was something I’d never seen before; it was intense, like he didn’t quite know the answer, and his sudden movement caused me to recoil back from him. It was strange because Five knew the answer to everything, except when it came to human emotions. He was kind of robotic in that sense. “What do you think about love?” Each word was sharply punctuated, almost like they were punched out of his mouth.

“Well I guess that depends,” I replied, “there’s all kinds of love. The Greeks had four words for it; agape, which is God’s divine love, storge which is family love, philia which is a brotherly or friendship love and eros, which is a-”

“Sexual or romantic love,” Five finished smoothly with an air of impatience. Yet his eyes had never left mine as I spoke and he interrupted. What right did he have to stare at me like he was doing and say those words? It was as if he wasn’t talking about them as a concept to me and rather had made it a little more…personal, I think. He had spoken those words in such a sterile way and yet I could feel my face flushing slightly. I had never been more grateful for the minimal light this corner of the roof received at night.

“Yeah,” I replied, snapping out of my reverie. I cleared my throat before continuing. “I think the book titled ‘The Four Loves’ by C.S. Lewis is a great reference for this topic.”

“That’s not what I’m asking though,” Five continued, his voice dropping in volume and pitch as he did. He shifted so he was slightly closer to me and invaded my personal bubble and I felt a shift in the conversation. This wasn’t one of our debates going on, rather an actual, personal conversation.

I swallowed, my throat suddenly dry. “I do believe in love, Five. I see the love my parents have for each other, I see how they love me and my siblings, I see how my siblings love me. Hell, I love you guys as well.”

Five raised a skeptical eyebrow at this. “Even Allison?” he asked plainly.

“Hmm, I think I’ll just working on tolerating her for now. I’m not quite there yet,” I replied, making him smile a little.

“Do you think you’ll ever be in love?” Five asked me softly, inquisitively.

It felt like he was physically poking me with this question. It was such a big question for a ten-year-old to ask, and it felt extremely probing to me. What was Five trying to get at with this?

It took me a moment to answer. I looked away from him before answering-there was just something about this answer that made me unable to look at him. “I should hope so. Again, I see the love my parents have for each other and it makes me believe that somewhere out there, is my soulmate.”

Five let out a cold laugh at this. “What a childish concept, _soulmates_.” He jibbed.

My brows came together as I looked at him again. “You asked me a question. I answered. Why would you make fun of that?”

“Because the idea of soulmates is so flawed.”

“Explain.”

“Do you _really_ think that there is one person for you out there, one person and one person only that you’ll ever fall in love with? And be with them forever?”

“I get that it’s a far-out idea, but I would hope that there is someone out there for me,” I replied defensively, folding my arms.

“But what about falling out of love? Divorce, or falling in love with more than one person in your life?” Five continued, a fire in his eyes.

I stood up to my full height in response. “Again, it’s a far-out idea. Falling in love with multiple people is a part of life I guess, unless you get really lucky and spend your life with the first person you fall in love with. But love in all of its forms, Five? That’s what you live for. Not power or money; it’s _love_.”

“Love is for children. Power is for adults.”

I threw my hands up in the air in frustration. “Five, power won’t keep you company or buy you your favourite snacks or look after you when you’re sick.”

“Power won’t let you down though,” he replied, cool as a cucumber.

“That’s not the point!” I shot back, raising my voice. Electricity started to flow across my body and the air around us became static. It was then that Five knew he was taking it too far.

“Okay, Bella, you need to calm down,” he said gently, reaching out to touch me but retracting his hand quickly because he knew he’d get shocked if he made contact with me like this.

The look of genuine concern on his face made me take a couple of deep breaths and count to ten multiple times. I could hear the static in the air begin to dissipate and my skin was no longer covered in electrical current.

“Okay,” I said through a sigh, “sorry, I shouldn’t have gotten that emotional.”

“I’m sorry too, I should have listened more instead of pushing you like that. I did ask your thoughts on this and that’s what you gave me,” Five replied.

I let out a small chuckle. “Two apologies in one day? Must be a record for you.”

He shrugged. “Technically one apology was yesterday and the other was today, so I haven’t gone over my daily quota yet.”

“A quota? For apologising?” I raised an eyebrow.

“I am a lot of things, Bella-Bella. Apologetic is not one of them.”

“You know, you don’t have to act so grown up all the time Five. You can be a kid,” I said as the wind picked up and blew some brown curls into my eyes.

“I know, I just-I just want to keep getting stronger. I want to push myself,” he explained.

I placed a hand on his shoulder. “Five, we’re _ten_. We have all the time in the world to push ourselves.” A yawn rudely pushed its way out of my mouth.

“But right now, it’s time to go to bed,” Five smirked.

“Yeah,” I answered, too tired to make a witty comment, “we should wake the others.”

“Pogo already did that,” Five replied. I looked over my shoulder to where Ben and Klaus had been lying, but there was nothing left there except some glitter from Klaus’ cape.

“How did I not notice that?” I wondered aloud.

“Anybody tell you that you’re not that observant?” Five quipped back.

“Shut your face,” I grumbled back at him.

“And that you’re creative?”

I mumbled some things under my breath that weren’t coherent to him. “Look Five it’s-” I paused to look at my watch, “jeepers it’s nearly one o’clock now. We need to go to bed.”

Five nodded. “Okay,” he said. A suspicious smile took over his face and he grabbed my hands. “Let’s take a shortcut.”

Before I could protest, there was a flash of blue and a horrible squeezing motion.

This time I fell onto my soft bed instead of a hard floor. “ _Why_ ,” I groaned, as my body felt like it was going through a meat grinder.

“Goodnight, Isabel,” Five said from where he stood beside my bed. The lucky butthead was used to this mode of travel and had managed to stay on his feet from our journey.

“You never call me Isabel, Bouncy Boy,” I groaned as I wrapped myself up in my duvet, not bothering to change into my pyjamas.

“Well, it’s a new year now. You know what they say, ‘new year, new me’!” he quipped sarcastically.

I didn’t know that I was doing it before it happened. I reached out to clasp his hand in mine. “Promise me that you’ll try and believe in love.”

He looked dumbfounded at my question prior to squeezing my hand in response. “I’ll try.”

And with questions about love still hanging in the air, I closed my eyes and sleep embraced me almost immediately. Blue light briefly filled the room once more and then there was silence.

* * *

A/N: So I hope that now we’ve gotten to the end of the first proper-ish chapter you all have a better feel for this story. If people are reading this and enjoyed, please leave a little comment! It’ll get the next chapter out more quickly and it’ll make my day! I’ll probably smile really big even if you left a single word or a smiley face. Reviews are what I’ve been told are the life-blood of a fanfic writer!

Anyways, enough scrounging for reviews (lol). I hope you all have a lovely day and stay safe!

Songs: ' _Year 3000_ ' by Busted/Jonas Brothers (the title caption was paraphrased to fit better, so I know the lyrics say three thousand and not two thousand. You've gotta be creative in this business!).

SunnySci :)).


	3. Diamond District In The Jag

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> 'Hargreeves had helped me, but he had simultaneously weaponized me.'
> 
> Introducing, the Umbrella Academy.

A/N: Hi guys! Just wanted to thank you all for all of the hits, kudos and comments that have been left on this story since I published it a few days ago. It’s really meant a lot to me because this is my first story so to see it’s been generally well received. Thanks to all the guests who’ve left kudos!

Xxx_Daily_Tears_xxX, SeparationBoundary, constipatedmuse, Levixyanage, dany89, WhiteAmora, Chandrakantya, Ehiden, and LadyofBoneandIvory: thank you all for leaving kudos as well!

Also, thanks to dany89, SeparationBoundary, Levixyange and constipatedmuse for your comments. And thank you to everyone who has bookmarked/subscribed! It truly makes me so happy to know people are enjoying reading my work as much as I like writing it.

Also, would just like to address the few wee comments I’ve had about the pacing of this story. Because of the format I’ve taken, which is meant to be like a series of diary entries, it may appear choppy in places. This is because of the time skips that’ll happened during the course of this story until we get to the season one plot.

Please bare with me and also use your imagination to fill in the blanks! I’d love to hear what you guys come up with. But I will also take this into account and try to get the story flowing a little more. There’ll be a few chapters were this isn’t possible but I’ll forewarn you guys of that when it comes.

Enough from me, here’s the chapter three. Enjoy!

* * *

Chapter Three: Diamond District In The Jag.

* * *

_The sixteenth of July, 2000: Hands, touching hands._

“That’s it, Number Eight, concentrate!” Sir bellowed at me from across the courtyard of the Academy. A wooden target outlined in red had been erected about ten metres in front of me.

Electricity coursed through my arms, flowing down to my hands. Sparks began to flicker across my skin and above my clothes as white energy began to gather in my palms. Sweat broke out on my forehead as I concentrated, small sparks now manifesting into a ball of electrical energy between my hands.

“Now hit the target!” he proclaimed, using his cane to point to a straw-filled bag with a red target painted on it.

“Ah!” I cried, launching the ball of electricity across the courtyard. Rain pelted down on us from the dark heavens above as thunder boomed. While I got soaked, Sir stood nice and dry under his umbrella, which probably wasn’t the best thing to do considering the thunderstorm going on.

The ball hit the target but fizzled out quickly. A black scorch mark now adorned the outer ring of the red target, but this was huge progress for me.

“That was satisfactory, Number Eight,” Sir boomed from under his black umbrella. How such a brilliant scientist also had an interest in the umbrella industry was something I had always been curious about. Nevertheless, this was high praise from Sir.

“Thank you, Sir,” I replied in between heavy breaths. Using my power was incredibly draining, but I was always better and more energised on rainy and stormy days like today compared to clear, sunny ones. The fact that I’d been able to do this was massive and Sir knew it.

I knew my parents had needed to send me here so I could study under Hargreeves, and based off the nature of my power I could understand why. It was dangerous and linked to my emotional state and if I lost control, there was the potential to be major consequences. Hargreeves had helped me to control it and for that I was thankful. What I wasn’t thankful for, was that he was training me up to be a weapon in his arsenal of superpowered kids. We were all just numbers to him, vessels of power that he could utilize that he didn’t even have the emotional capacity to name. A part of me was grateful to him for helping me to control my power, but the other part of me resented him strongly for simultaneously weaponizing me. It was an odd combination of emotions to feel for someone. I knew I disliked him, maybe even hated him, but there would always be a small part of me that was grateful to him.

“Your training is finished for today. Go and clean yourself up before dinner,” he stated. I didn’t even get a chance to say ‘thank-you’ before his attention had been diverted to Luther who had walked out into the courtyard for his training, and so I walked back into the house and through the foyer to get to the staircase that led to our quarters. Pain radiated from my hands from the use of my power and I held them carefully by my sides, hyperaware of every delicate motion they made.

The other kids in the Academy always seemed to be one step ahead of me when it came to what they could do. It didn’t matter whether it was to do with their powers or their hand-to-hand combat skills and, until recently, their academic studies. That was the one area where I was able to relatively catch up with them and it had only been because of a lot of hard work. The other areas, however, I always felt five steps behind. Hard work could only bring me so far in those areas: there was also that annoying thing known as ‘natural talent’. Regardless, today I had made progress and I was proud of that, despite how insignificant it may seem to the skill set that the others had.

“Hey, Isabel,” Ben chimed from the living room. I sent him back a tight smile as water dripped from my clothes and onto the tiled floor of the foyer. I really didn’t want to give Grace more work than necessary and I was in pain, so I didn’t have time to stop and chat with him. The crush that I’d had on him at New Years had subsided slightly, but feelings were still there. Them subsiding, however, made it easier for me to talk to him as if little had changed between us.

I scuttled along the corridors of the house to my room. Arms encircled me from behind and a sudden squeezing sensation followed.

“Ugh, you’re soaking wet,” Five said in disgust as we Blinked into my room. He stepped away from me quickly, but not before some water seeped into his clothes.

“What the hell were you thinking?” I chastised him in a quiet voice. “You’re the one who’s always telling me not to tell anyone that you can jump with another person, because if Sir found out he’d derail your personal training! And here you are, Blinking about with me like nobody’s business!”

“Ah, you think so little of me, Bella-Bella,” he replied mockingly, “as if I’d be stupid enough to let someone see us.”

I glared at him in response. “On your own head be it,” I replied wearily. Water continued to drip down from my hair and slide off the end of my pointed nose. I always thought it made me look slightly rodent-like.

I sat down on my faux leather desk chair and started shrugging off my blazer. The soaking wet article was then deposited in my dirty laundry basket with a conspicuous clatter. Five sent me a quizzical look, went and picked up my blazer and plucked the item that had made the noise out of the inside pocket.

“Didn’t know you liked fudge nutters,” he said with a knowing glint in his eyes. He twirled the ends of the candy bar between the index finger and thumb of either hand while sending me a smirk, which only served to highlight the dimple in his left cheek.

“I don’t. Apparently, _someone_ can’t function without sugar and caffeine,” I shot back derisively, “can’t have your power shorting out because you need candy, you muppet.”

Five continued to smirk. “Aww, you care!” he crooned mockingly. 

“Oh, shove off, it’s not like I’m carrying about your life support,” I grumbled. In truth, I was kind of embarrassed about him finding that. It was like, I knew enough about him by now that I carried candy with me just in case he needed it, but I didn’t want him to know that I was doing it. I didn’t want him to know that I cared. 

My tie followed my blazer into the wash basket. A wince flashed across my face as the material of my tie irritated my inflamed fingers. I reached down to untie my shoelaces and found that Five was already there, silently loosening the laces.

“Thanks,” I mumbled. I couldn’t help but be a teensy bit embarrassed. Actually screw that, I was downright _mortified_. I felt like friggin’ Cinderella or some other kind of helpless, damaged damsel right now all because it hurt to use my fingers. I didn’t like depending on other people and I knew that Five didn’t like being depended upon. He wasn’t exactly the most sympathetic or helpful of people (unless it was Vanya) and he very much liked to do his own thing independently of anyone else, so for him to do this…it was weird. It was appreciated, but it made a few emotions circulate in my system that I couldn’t quite define.

“It’s fine,” he replied, slipping the black brogue off my foot, “I know.”

To those who would overhear this statement, simply saying ‘I know’ was a little cryptic. Not to me, though. Five was the first to know that when Sir had stepped up my training from merely shocking people through touch to conjuring larger amounts of electricity, it burned my hands. As time has gone on the burning is nowhere near as bad, but it meant my hands couldn’t do some fine motor tasks for a while after using my power. So, Five helped. I kept this from the others because…well, because of pride, I suppose. No-one else had trouble with their powers like I did, so for Five to be privy to my struggle was odd to say the least. It felt like he grew stronger daily and his power came to him with an enviable ease, whereas I really struggled in comparison. He could have made fun of me, but he didn’t. There was the occasional jest and jab, as this was Five we were talking about, but nothing that I couldn’t handle or take too personally. I had a relatively thick skin when it came to banter.

This new year had caused a shift in our relationship. Where we would argue and debate and roast each other often (which still happened, and it was _the_ most fun), there was a deeper element of care there, which had been surprisingly lovely. I actually felt like I was getting to know Five, the real Five, the one that he kept hidden under layers of sarcasm and fluffernutter sandwiches.

It was nice to be able to chat with him and Vanya when Klaus and Ben were getting on my nerves. I mean, it was Klaus; there was only so much patience anyone could have for him (except for Ben, that boy was a never-ending reservoir of patience and overall goodness). It had also brought me a little closer to Vanya. I hadn’t realized that I didn’t have much of a relationship with the other kids outside of Klaus and Ben until I’d gotten closer to Five and Vanya, and it had been a harsh eyeopener that I hadn’t built many strong relationships with them despite living with them for the last few years.

I guess relationships and people just weren’t my forte, or rather, I didn’t know how to form relationships because of the Academy’s emphasis on training and the tense, competitive environment that created. It didn’t exactly foster an environment conducive to healthy relationships, so we had what we had.

“Ow,” I whimpered pathetically, staring at my inflamed hands. I held them out in front of me as they shook slightly. My fingertips always came out the worst in these situations, with slight tears in the skin causing blood to clot and congeal in the cracks. At the start of all of this I would have gone to Grace to activate her medic protocol and she would patch me up, but as time went on I had learned to endure the pain unless the damage was bad. The nerve endings in my fingers had suffered the most, and there were times it was really noticeable that my sensation of touch had dulled.

Five finished taking off my other shoe. “How bad?” he asked. If I didn’t know him better I would say that his tone was careless, when really he wanted to be careful with my feelings and know how I was doing.

“It’s okay, really,” I replied, hissing slightly as his fingertips gently touched mine. He didn’t mean to hurt me; rather the opposite actually. The action helped to draw away some of the pain. “One day it’ll stop hurting.”

Five looked up at me disbelievingly. He then huffed and stood up, turning away from me and crossing to the opposite side of my room. “You’ll catch a cold if you stay in those wet clothes,” he said over his shoulder before Blinking away.

I smiled a little in the direction where he’d been standing. He might show it in a dysfunctional way, but he really did care.

* * *

_The second of October, 2000, 11:17AM: The start of something new._

A blaring alarm ripped through the silence of the house. I was currently sat in the living room re-reading ‘ _Prince Caspian’_ as Ben and Diego were playing Battleships on the floor in front of me. Vanya paused in her painting of Klaus’ toenails as the alarm sounded. For half a second, we all sat still, processing what this meant, before everyone bar Vanya snapped into action.

Hargreeves had been waiting months for this day. It had been just after he’d returned from being away at New Years that he’d gathered all of us (again, bar Vanya) in his office and informed us of his plans to basically make us into a ‘crime-fighting squad’. Of course, we were aware of his intention to do so, but this was the first time that we’d actually heard of anything being put into motion. Too many practice drills and several false alarms had followed from then and finally, here we were.

Diego and Luther (and by association, Allison) had been the most enthusiastic about this. The rest of us had either a ‘I don’t want to do this’ attitude (mainly Klaus), had been unbothered by it (Ben), or just plain didn’t want to do it (me). Five was hard to gauge in what he thought about it but then again, he wasn’t the most open of books.

I admit, my attitude had changed slightly since then and I now saw it as an opportunity to get out of the house and see more of the world. However, it did highlight to me how dysfunctional this family was. Most families took trips to the seaside or had movie nights with each other to bond. The Hargreeves, however? It was a casual trip to the bank to stop a robbery.

“Hurry, hurry, hurry!” Hargreeves thundered as we hurried around our rooms. For the first mission, he had insisted on us being impeccably dressed in our uniforms and domino masks, saying things about how it would do wonders for our image in the press. Five had scoffed at that.

I shoved my arms into my blazer and almost tripped over my feet as I spun around to snatch the domino mask off my desk. Thankfully, we had been dressed in freshly laundered uniforms, so it minimised the amount of time we needed to get ready. The alarm had started sounding at exactly seventeen minutes past eleven and we were all gathered and ready to go in the foyer three minutes later, lined up perfectly straight and facing the front door.

The rush we had been in had left us all a bit breathless, shown by the sounds of our heavy breathing that filled the silent periods in between the alarm. Vanya stood beside Sir as he studied us quickly, yet his meticulous gaze didn’t miss a single flaw.

“Number Two tighten your tie, Number Three straighten your mask, pull up your socks Number Four, put in your top button Number Five,” he listed off rapidly. “Number Eight, tighten up your shoelaces! You need to be able to move quickly for this.”

I dropped down to pull my laces almost painfully tightly around my foot, cursing him in my mind. We were barely eleven and Hargreeves was acting like we were professionals capable of doing the job of fully-grown men and women. It wasn’t the physical side of this that concerned me too greatly because admittedly, we had been trained well. It was the mental side of it. How would we deal with everything we were going to see and do and experience…now that was scary.

Hargreeves had made it abundantly clear that he expected us to do _anything_ necessary to get the job done. Even hurting other people. I mean, since they were already committing a crime in order for us to be there, they couldn’t be completely innocent but still…we were _eleven_.

“Time to go,” said Hargreeves. Pogo opened the front door of the house and we followed Sir out to the black car awaiting us on the pavement outside. I was the last to leave and for a second I looked back into the house to see Vanya standing beside Grace. The robot-mother had her arm wrapped around Vanya’s shoulders and the girl stared blankly at us as we piled into the car. For years to come I would remember that empty look on Vanya’s face. It was the definition of the word ‘lonely’.

“Number Eight!” Sir shouted from the car. I snapped back into motion and hopped into the vehicle, closing the door behind me and sitting down in between Ben and Five as the drive began.

“Your mission is simple. Hostages are being held at the Capital West bank downtown and your responsibility is to make sure they all leave that building alive,” Sir began, holding up a file with images of the bank pinned to it, “you will infiltrate the building from the fire exit door at the bank of the bank. The locks on the doors are electrically operated, which is where you come in Number Eight. Once the door is open, you’ll make your way to the foyer of the bank where the hostages are reportedly being held. Take down the criminals in whatever way you see fit and prepare to smile nicely for the press. Your targets are heavily armed.” Sir snapped the file shut and glared at all of us, his gaze lingering on Five. “I expect you all to adhere to the plan. Do not go rogue, do not think you can do this all by yourself. You are stronger together and I have put too much work into you all to lose any of you at the first hurdle. Therefore, make sure you all get out _alive_.”

* * *

_The second of October, 2000, 11:52AM._

The seven of us rushed out of the car towards the fire door we had been told about. “Let’s go, Isabel!” Luther commanded impatiently. Helicopters swarmed overhead and the loud droning made it hard for me to focus.

“Just give her a second,” Ben said gently. He placed his hand on my shoulder. “You got this.”

A hint of a smile graced my face and I looked away from him quickly as my cheeks start to heat up. I yanked my right arm out of my blazer and placed my hand on the door, feeling for the electrical current that simultaneously kept the door locked and would sound the alarm if it had been breached. Giving the criminals inside a heads up that they weren’t alone wouldn’t be the smartest thing to do.

I closed my eyes as I felt the thrum of the electricity in the door. Noise began to fade as I concentrated. I moved my hand around the door to get a better sense of where the electricity was the strongest, like my hand was magnetised to it.

“Got it,” I declared. “The power is coming from the top of the door and its side. I just need to-”

 _Bang_.

I let the electricity flow through my arm and to the top of the door, blowing up whatever circuit was there.

“Could she be any slower?” I heard Allison murmur to Luther.

I took my hand off the door to turn to her. “Maybe you’d like to try?” I asked her innocently. I placed a finger on my chin and tapped it as if in thought. “Oh wait, the door doesn’t have ears, so you can’t rumour it open. So, if you keep your smart-ass comments to yourself, that’d be much appreciated,” I replied with a snide smile.

“Bella,” Five said calmly, and that was all I needed to remember my task. His interruption had calmed me down and had stopped Allison from retaliating, judging by the way she was now muttering irritably to Luther.

With a sigh, I placed my hand on the side of the door and let another influx of electricity overload the locking mechanism. Sparks burst from the door and blackened the lock as it swung open. Before I even got a chance to take a breath, Luther had already entered the bank and disappeared from sight. He was closely followed by Diego and Allison.

“Good job Sparkles,” Klaus said airily as he passed me, wiggling his fingers at me as he sauntered into the bank with Ben close behind him.

I looked to my left to see Five standing there. “Fancy giving me a piggyback in?” I asked meekly, shoving my arm back in my blazer. With each second that passed I fell further behind my siblings. Five, on the other hand, didn’t have to worry about that.

“Sorry, I only have space for one,” he replied with a smirk. His head dipped slightly in the direction of where we had left the car. I turned to see that Hargreeves was still here and remembered that he couldn’t find out that Five could jump with another person. Still, Five didn’t need to look so cocky that he didn’t have to run like I would have to.

 _Whoosh_. In a flash of blue he was gone.

“You little-”

* * *

_The second of October, 2000, 11:55AM: Money, money, money, must be funny._

“Hey, get them behind the counter! Now you’ve put me in the position where I gotta do something I don't wanna do. Hmm?”

I rounded the corner of the hallway that opened up into the bank’s entrance hall as a gruff voice spoke into a handheld radio. I watched as he directed the hostages behind the bank’s counter and stopped in my tracks as Allison bounced up beside him, an air of naïveté about her as she placed her hands behind her back.

The dark-coloured counter was likely the safest place in the room for the hostages to be. The foyer had tall ceilings and marble floors that were perfect for sliding across. The large windows around the counter caused the incoming sunlight to be reflected up from the floor and harshly into my eyes. It was a very clean, sterile room, with glass panes built into the roof. It had a grand presence about it that just screamed ‘money’. I guess that was what it meant to say, considering it was a _bank._

“Get back with the others,” the man with the walkie-talkie commanded. He certainly made for an imposing figure with the long trench coat, bald head and sharp facial features.

“I heard a rumour,” Allison began.

“What? What did you say?”

Allison smiled and leaned towards him, cupping her hand to the side of her mouth. “I heard a rumour that you shot your friend in the foot.”

The man’s eyes went white. He proceeded to cock his gun, drawing the worried attention of another one of the robbers.

“Hey dude, what the hell?”

 _Bang_.

The bullet cut through leather and flesh as it found its target, causing the robber to fall to the ground. He squeezed the trigger of his automatic gun as he fell, spraying bullets everywhere. Glass smashed as the bullets narrowly missed a splinter group of hostages. That was when the screaming started.

I rushed over to the smaller group of hostages and knelt down in front of them. “Don’t worry guys, we’ve got this handled!” I reassured them. One of the hostages let out a scream and pointed to behind me. In the reflection of the polished marble I saw an armed man standing there. I channelled electricity to my hands and spun around to face him.

“Hi,” I said as I waved childishly at him. I put one hand on his gun to point it upwards and my other went on his wrist. Electricity fired through my hands and into him and he twitched and groaned as the current went through him. His body went slack and he collapsed on the floor, still twitching intermittently.

Allison rushed over to him and grabbed the gun before I had the chance to move. She disassembled it deftly, giving me a withering look. “Always remember to dispose of the enemy’s weapons. Or have you already forgotten Dad’s rules?” she said, barely suppressed venom inflicting her words.

“Your dad, Allison, not mine,” I replied. Thank the Lord for that small blessing.

A shadow crossed over the ground from above the building and before I could even look up, glass shattered and Luther fell. I heard him hit the floor and saw him spring up immediately to take out the armed man guarding the hostages. For good measure (and because he was Luther; the boy really didn’t know his own strength) he picked up the man and launched him through the top window. Allison escorted the splinter group of hostages over to join with the others.

“Guns are for sissies, _real_ men throw knives,” Diego declared, throwing two knives which embedding themselves in the chest of another robber and pinned him to the wall.

“Get back you freaks!” the criminal that Allison had rumoured said shakily, pointing his gun at Diego, Allison and Ben, who had somehow entered the scene.

“Hey, be careful up there buddy!” Diego chided, placing his hands casually in the pockets of his culottes.

“Get back now!”

“Yeah, wouldn’t want you to get hurt,” Allison interjected.

 _Whoosh_. “Or what?” chimed Five who had materialised behind the robber and sat cross-legged on the counter. He dematerialised as soon as the gun was pointed in his direction and the criminal let loose a string of bullets at the place where he had been.

Quick as a flash, Five reappeared on his other side, now standing with his arms folded. The robber held up what he thought to be his gun to shoot Five but the firearm had been replaced with a…stapler, maybe?

“Oooh! That’s one badass stapler!” Five mocked. He proceeded to grab the robber’s hand that held the stapler and smashed him in the forehead with it, leaving him dazed and with a gouge in his face. He hit the floor a few seconds later with a resounding _thump_.

Another robber emerged from the depths of the bank. As I was the closest and least preoccupied, I summoned a ball of electricity to the palm of my right hand. As I was right-handed, controlling electricity was always easier with that hand and I tended to favour it. With a grunt I tossed the ball at the robber, but the sound of a gunshot put me off just as it was leaving my palm. The ball hit its mark and the robber crumpled to the ground, but I had clenched my hand in response to the gunshot, causing current to redirect suddenly and burn my skin. My hand smouldered slightly and the smell of burning flesh filled the air around me.

“Ow!” I cried out. I clutched my hand to my chest as pain radiated up my arm. The slightest movement of fingers caused pain was nearly impossible to bare.

“Izzie!” Two voices shouted.

I registered that the voices belonged to Five and Ben. It must have looked bad since Five called me Izzie-he never called me anything but ‘Bella’ (because it had annoyed me when I was younger) unless he was being serious. Using my good hand, I waved in their direction to wave away their concern. “I’m fine! Let’s just finish this,” I responded. Pain shot up my arm and I let out a hiss of agony, my face contorting in pain from the ache of my hand. Tears prickled in the corner of my eyes.

“Isabel is right, we stick to the mission,” Luther stated clearly. He was focused on carrying out his father’s orders, especially considering that he was the golden child.

Klaus finally floated onto the scene. “There’s a lot of guys in the vault over here,” he said, running his fingers along the frosted glass of said vault behind the bank’s counter.

“Where have you been?” Diego demanded as he spun a knife in his hand.

“Oh, here and there,” Klaus deflected in an airy voice. “But I can confirm that the rest of the bad guys are in this lil gold mine here.”

Luther was closest to the single door of the vault. We could see him jiggling the door and trying to open it but his shoulders suddenly slumped.

“The door has an electronic lock on it, doesn’t it?” Five deduced, turning his head to look at me.

“And the glass? Bulletproof,” continued Diego, tapping the glass to confirm his suspicions. “That door is the only way in or out.”

Everyone turned to me. The rest of this mission appeared to fall on me. “How’s your other hand?” Allison inquired.

“There’s bound to be another way to open it,” Klaus chimed in, stroking the glass in an oddly pet-like manner.

“We could try hacking into the system,” Diego suggested.

“Look where we’re standing right now Diego. It’s a _bank_. There’s no way they’d be stupid enough to make their security measures hackable to an eleven-year old,” Five chided.

Luther turned his gaze hesitantly to me. “So, about your other hand…” he trailed off, echoing what Allison had said.

I steeled myself and breathed evenly, attempting to focus my brain on something other than the ache of my hand. “It’s not as strong as my right, but I’ll give it a shot,” I replied determinedly. The sooner we got out of here, the sooner I could get my hand seen to. Hopefully if there was nerve damage, we would still be within the ‘golden time’ they talk about when it comes to healing and I’d get full function back.

I gently let go of my right hand and placed the other on the vault door. The front of it was glass and therefore not a good conductor of electricity, so finding the source of the lock would be more difficult. I shifted my hand to the door’s metal frame and felt current coursing through it.

“Do you think-” Klaus started before Luther and Five shushed him.

I moved my hand to the right side of the door and felt the lock’s source. “Bingo-bango, I can get the door. Who’s going in? Getting this lock off will be noisy, so I’m giving you a heads up.”

All eyes turned on Ben. “Really? Do I have to do this?” he protested. Ben’s power was…weird, to say the least, but no-one disliked it more than Ben himself.

“You’re the best equipped,” Luther said, leaving no room for Ben to argue.

Number Six sighed forlornly and turned to the door. “I didn’t sign up for this.”

“Okay, the lock on this door is much bigger than the lock on the fire door we came through. I need you guys to get the hostages to a safer place,” I told the others through clenched teeth. Electricity crackled down my left arm whereas pain shot up the right.

“Get everyone outside!” Diego shouted. He and Klaus busted open the bank’s front doors and led the hostages outside while the others stayed behind at a safe distance just in case something went wrong.

“Are you sure you’re okay?” Ben quietly asked.

“Honestly, no,” I managed to scrape out. Each minute that passed by meant the pain worsened. “So please finish this as quickly as you can. And stay safe.” Ben nodded at me in response. Current flowed down my arm and the air around us became charged. “It’s taking…more energy than I thought,” I ground out. I pushed a little more energy down my arm and into the door frame but I was approaching my limit. If the door didn’t bust open now, I wouldn’t be able to open it.

_BOOM!_

Without warning the lock blew and nearly took the door off its hinges. A shower of sparks flew out and covered the front desk while my body hit the floor. I skidded across it and became aware of a tight grip around my waist.

The sparks had been so bright that I’d missed the blue glow of Five jumping out of a portal and tackling me to the floor. Thankfully, my damaged hand had been clutched to my chest and I had fallen on my side so further damage to it had been prevented. Still, the jostling from the tackle had sent a couple of stinging waves up my arm.

The grip on my waist relaxed and Five knelt beside me. “Are you okay?” he asked, genuine concern in his blue-green eyes. I nodded in response. He held out his hand to help me up and out of habit I went to give him my right one. I recoiled it back to my chest as I hissed again, the skin burnt and charred. Instead Five grabbed my upper left arm and helped to hoist me to my feet.

“I guess running it under cold water for fifteen minutes won’t help much?” he quipped. It took all I could to muster a grin.

Our attention was then brought back to the vault when we heard the slamming of tentacles on bodies and unidentifiable body parts were slammed against the vault’s frosted glass, splattering it with blood. We all subconsciously and slowly approached it as Ben did his thing.

The tentacles disappeared and silence reigned in the foyer. Ben emerged like he’d just walked off the set of _Carrie_. His breathing was uneven as he shakily asked, “Can we go home now?”

* * *

_The second of October, 2000, 12:23 PM: All of the lights._

The seven of us gathered on the front steps of the bank to a sea of reporters. It was easy to tell in that moment who enjoyed the work we had done in there. The seven of us had been split into two groups: Diego, Allison, Luther and Five loved and embraced the attention. Klaus, Ben and I just wanted to go home. I clung to the wrist of my damaged hand and tried to hide it from the view of the press to keep up the pretence that this job had been easy and that none of us had been hurt during it.

In a few hours’ time, I would be back with Grace and Pogo in the Academy’s medical wing. Most of my hand had only sustained a partial thickness burn but there were worse off. Grace was a reservoir of medical knowledge and skill, so along with Pogo I knew I was going to receive the best care possible.

They did what they could, but the areas that had been burnt the worst were scarred for life. Most of the nerves survived and I had full function in my hand. Nonetheless, there were a few areas that were less sensitive to touch. It was a lesson, a harsh lesson to learn from my first job, but it was a lesson nonetheless. Seeing that my power could hurt me badly if I wasn’t careful was a wake-up call to how dangerous this ability I had.

Back in the present, camera lights flashed and reporters babbled until everything melded into a cacophony of sound and light. Hargreeves had gotten what he wanted; a well-executed job, none of us were mortally wounded and the media loved us. The Umbrella Academy was about to be the most talked about thing of the decade and this mission was only the first in a long line of tasks to head our way.

If only we knew what was to come. If only we knew of what we were to _lose_.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading guys! I hope you’ve enjoyed this chapter. Lemme know any good songs that you’d like to recommend to me!

Song list

Chapter title: Lyrics from ‘ _I Like It’_ by Cardi B.

Subtitles: ‘Hands touching hands’ are lyrics from ‘ _Sweet Caroline’_ by Neil Diamond.

‘ _The Start Of Something New’_ is the opening number from High School Musical (and now, you’re singing it in your head. Don’t deny it!).

‘Money, money, money, must be funny’ are lyrics from ‘ _Money, Money, Money’_ by ABBA. How an ABBA song hasn’t featured on the official UA soundtrack yet, I will never know.

‘ _All Of The Lights’_ by Kanye West.

Also, would love to know what your guys’ favourite song from the Umbrella Academy’s soundtrack? I have to say I like _Golden Brown_ , _Comin’ Home Baby_ , and _Sister of Pearl_. _Sinnerman_ is also becoming a fast favourite of mine!


	4. So Make Your Siren’s Call

A/N: Author’s notes will now be written at the end of chapters, so check that out once you’re done reading the chapter if you wanna! Also, I threw a little reference to the comics into this chapter. See if you can find it! :))

* * *

Chapter Four: So Make Your Siren’s Call.

* * *

_Date unknown, early-mid 2001, 10:56PM. Mission number unknown: We didn’t start the fire._

“Get them out of here!” Luther yelled as fire engulfed the building. Smoke rose high into the night sky and the longer we stayed on this floor, the heavier the smoke was going to get.

“Diego! Snip through as many of the sprinkler lines as you can, I’m gonna try and spark some life back into the sprinkler system!” I shouted over the noise of the helicopters above us.

A faulty sprinkler system had left a department store a fireball. The sun had long left the sky and the fire had been burning up the multi-storey building for longer than we would have liked. Each second meant the building’s stability was decreasing and we either needed the fire to be put out or evacuate the building.

Luther, Diego and I had been sent in to find any stragglers and to see if we could try and get the sprinkler system working. Five had also been Blinking in and out to try and find where the circuit board for the sprinkler system was to direct me to it.

“Over here!” I heard Five yell. His hand waved at me from across the room but I could barely see it through the gloom.

“On my way!” I shouted back. Smoke filled my lungs and made me choke so I stuck my gas mask over my face again. Communication was practically impossible with it on.

“You okay, Izzie?” Diego asked, his face painted with concern and sweat, which left black streaks running down his cheeks from the soot that had accumulated on his skin.

“I’m fine, just sweep the room with Luther! Five’s got me,” I replied, my voice muffled through the mask.

I crouched down and crossed the floor in the direction of Five’s still waving hand. The fire was going to enter this room any moment and the flammable nature of the clothing in here made us need to work fast. I dodged through racks and rails of multicoloured shirts and coats to find myself by Five’s side.

“There it is,” he said, pointing to a metal box on the wall behind him. The cover of it had already been taken off leaving the circuit board exposed.

“Okay let’s see what we’re working with,” I mused aloud to myself. I took off my protective gloves and placed them in Five’s awaiting hands.

“It’s definitely damaged. I don’t think you could repair this,” Five said as he fiddled with my gloves.

“I’m not trying to fix it, I just need to bypass the actual circuit board and get enough of an electrical charge to the system to start it,” I replied as I fiddled with the multitude of wires in front of me, “did you happen to see the master cable when you opened the box?”

“What would it look like?”

“It’d be the thickest wire in here, probably have a black and yellow striped insulating cover,” I answered. The smoke was getting so heavy that I could barely see in front of me.

“Yeah, I think I did. It was at the bottom of the box,” Five replied after a moment of contemplation.

I looked to the bottom of the circuit board. “Aha!” I said triumphantly as I found the master wire.

A deep rumbling filled the building. Dust fell from the ceiling and the ground beneath my feet shook.

“You’d better hurry,” Five stated.

“Yeah this building’s not gonna last much longer,” I replied as I stripped the insulating cover of the master cable off. “You guys should get out of here.”

“Luther and Diego need to leave. I can Blink us out of here in a heartbeat,” Five continued.

I ripped my mask off my face. “Luther! Diego! Get out of here-” I inhaled and choked mightily on the smoke. Once I managed to catch my breath, I continued to shout, albeit a lot more strained this time. “Five and I have got this!”

“Let’s go,” I heard Luther faintly say to Diego.

I continued to strip away at the wire insulation. “You know, you should really put your mask back on,” Fire said nonchalantly. It may have sounded like he didn’t care but that’s what Five was like; he acted like he didn’t care when really it was the opposite.

I chuckled at this. “And accidentally blow up my oxygen tank if this wire has any current left in it? Even you couldn’t Blink out of here fast enough to avoid that.”

“True,” he replied.

“And what happened to your Dad not finding out about you managing to jump with another person?”

Five paused for a moment. “It’s getting to the point where there’s only so many times I can jump with a mannequin before he starts suggesting I do it with actual people.”

“Well, you’ve held off for this long,” I remarked. I stripped off the last of the insulating cover. “There, ready to go.”

I handed my oxygen mask to Five. “Since when did I become your maid,” he scoffed as he held my gloves and mask.

“You’re not? Gee, I thought that’s what you did around here,” I snarked back at him.

Five made a snorting sound. “If I was a maid, you wouldn’t be able to afford my services.”

“Regardless, I think you’d pull off a maid’s uniform quite nicely,” I replied sarcastically. I held the wire in my hands and could feel where the electricity needed to go, seeing in my mind the path the energy would take. “I’d get out of here if I were you.”

The building shook dangerously once again. Ceiling tiles began to shatter as they fell from the roof and the fire had just reached this floor. Sweat ran down my back in rivulets as the temperature in the room began to reach an unbearable temperature. The room was starting to glow orange from the rapidly approaching flames.

Five looked at me, his eyes flickering with concern. “I’ll be back for you.”

“Oh, don’t be so dramatic,” I chided him lightly. “I’ll be fine. Make sure everyone else got out before coming back.”

“I’m not happy about this,” Five grumbled.

“Would you get out of here so I can do my damn job already? We’re running out of time!” I snapped at him, fixing him with an intense look. With that, he let out a frustrated breath and disappeared in a flash of blue.

‘ _Finally_ ,’ I thought to myself. I flexed my shoulders and rolled my neck in preparation for this. Electric currents flooded down my arms to where my hands gripped the master wire and in a flash I felt the power surging into and through the wire to the sprinkler system.

Pipes within the walls gurgled as liquid rushed through them. Water poured from the ceiling and onto the floor, soaking the clothes as it gushed from the pipes. I allowed myself a small, proud smile before the building shook again. The motion surprised me and I let out a small scream.

My surprise had also caused me to lose my concentration. It was only for a second, but that was enough. More power surged through my hands and the entire circuit board sparked and glittered as the fuses went. The circuit box blackened, the sprinklers stopped working, the flames began to rise again. A rack of clothes on them opposite side of the room had caught fire, sending noxious fumes through the air.

That rack also happened to be blocking the only fire exit on this floor. I rushed over to the stairwell to get down to the lower levels but it was impassable due to fallen debris and rising flames. In short, I was trapped without an oxygen mask in a boiling hot room.

“Five?” I said shakily, fear beginning to creep in. I was three storeys off the ground so that meant I couldn’t jump out the window, and of course the elevator was off-limits too. “Five?” I said more loudly, my voice beginning to crack from the smoke inhalation. He said he’d be back, but what was taking so long? The fire was now starting to rapidly spread across the room towards me. “Five!” I started to shriek as panic started to set in. I moved myself so that I was beside a window. Smoke from the outside drifted up past it making it hard for me to to see out and equally difficult for anyone on the outside to see in.

Blue and red lights flashed through the smog. I could make out the shapes of fire trucks on the pavement below and firefighters aiming their hoses as water poured out of the end of them.

More smoke. More heat. Less air.

“Come on Five,” I mumbled to myself. A nearby sweater had been drenched during the brief moments the sprinklers had been functioning for and I held it to cover my nose and mouth. My eyes started to sting painfully and tears started to blur my vision. I wasn’t crying but I was close to it. I huddled in among some of the soaked clothes. I could hear the fire crackling and getting closer.

 _Whoosh_. A flash of blue. “Izzie?” I heard Five call out.

“Over-” I started. Coughing wracked through me and I placed my hand over my mouth. When I took it away, black spit was stuck to it.

“Izzie?” Five called again.

I managed to stand up on wavering legs. “Five,” I croaked out.

 _Crack_.

The ground started to cave in beneath me. A hole opened up not ten feet from me and I let out a throaty shriek as the floor tipped sideways.

A hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. I felt the familiar squeeze and pull of entering a Blink before landing hard on tarmacked ground. The squeezing had made my coughing worse and I went into another coughing fit. A mask was placed over my nose and mouth and sweet, cool air flooded into my chest. I felt hands push me up so that I was sitting on the asphalt as another pair held the mask to my face. Everything was blurry and distorted as I let the oxygen flow through my lungs and into my bloodstream. I could hear voices but they were too muffled for me to determine if they belonged to anyone I knew or not.

“Izzie!” was the first thing I heard. I turned my head towards the sound of my name. Klaus’s face swam into my vision. He and Allison had gotten off lightly on this mission but he was still covered in dust and his cheeks were streaked with soot. Concern flooded his features. “You’re okay, you’re okay,” he reassured me. I looked at him and then moved my head to the other side to see Ben there, the two of them holding either side of my body upright. Five was in front of me pressing the mask I’d left him with to my face.

I let out a breath I hadn’t known I’d been holding. All of the tension I’d been holding inside of my body released like a coiled-up spring and my body went flaccid. If it hadn’t been for Ben and Klaus holding me I would have smacked off the tarmac again. The adrenaline was starting to fade from my body and with it, my strength. I could barely muster the energy to nod at Klaus as my eyelids started to droop.

Red and blue lights flickered around the parking lot I found myself in. I could see the mall burning not even one hundred metres from where we lay on the ground. A loud cracking sound cut through the night and we all let out gasps when the building collapsed in a cloud of smoke and dust. It continued to burn even as the dust wave the collapse had created swamped us.

Looming over me was a familiar, imposing figure. Just behind him were Allison, Luther and Diego (the latter two were also clutching oxygen masks to their faces and looking worse for wear). Five scooted to my side as Hargreeves took centre stage here. Flashes of light illuminated the lines of his face and glinted menacingly off his monocle.

“I am so disappointed in you, Number Eight. Tonight, you have failed the Umbrella Academy.”

With that, all eyes fell on me as mine eventually closed and succumbed to rest.

* * *

_The twenty-sixth of June, 2001: A rose by any other name._

I had been side-lined from Umbrella Academy missions for weeks after the botched job at the mall. I really didn’t mind but it did give me somewhat of an insight into what life was like for Vanya. While I knew my exclusion was only temporary, hers was permanent owing to her state of powerlessness. I wasn’t the biggest fan of going on missions but when the rest of the kids did and you were left behind, it did suck. It always confused me as to why every member of the Academy had to go on missions even when our powers weren’t all that relevant to the mission. If you wanted assassins taken out? Send Diego. Need to manipulate someone? Allison was your girl. And so on and so forth. A mission involving lots of water? Count me out unless you want to crispy fried superkids for dinner.

The others had just returned from another mission. From our first job saving the hostages at the bank, the Academy had been called in on at least two cases a week; and that was a slow week. It wasn’t just missions here in the States either, it was all over the world. The last mission the Academy had been sent out on had been to some classified location in Nepal. The mission before that? Dealing with a terrorist’s headquarters along the Inca trail.

As the others gushed to Vanya and I about what they’d been up to I could help but feel pangs of jealousy. To make it worse, I felt like I couldn’t show that I was jealous for Vanya’s sake; I thought that would make things worse for her. The two of us had only had each other for consistent company lately and it had added a new dimension to our relationship. It was nice to be close to another girl in the house because let’s be realistic here, Allison and I were never going to be friends.

I should also mention that the relationship between the two of us did have one redeeming-ish quality. The two of us seemed to have an unspoken agreement that we would never speak of our first meeting and what had happened then. The fact that she had rumoured me had the potential to cause some major problems for the eight of us and so it was never spoken of, even if neither of us could remember what we’d been rumoured to forget.

So, it went unaddressed, just like no-one spoke about Diego’s stutter or Ben’s recent pre-teen misfortune regarding acne.

We had all initially congregated in the living room after dinner. Vanya had gone to music practice and Luther and Allison had slunk off a while ago to do dear knows what. I lay on the sofa with my head in Klaus’ lap as he braided my hair in random patterns. Diego and Ben were playing ‘Operation’ on the table in front of us and Five sat on the floor in front of me reading a book. I turned my head in Klaus’ lap so I could read over Five’s shoulder.

“ _’The Prisoner of Azkaban’_ again, Five?” I commented as he licked his index finger and turned the page.

“What can I say? It’s the one childish book series I can stand,” he mused, holding a half-eaten fluffernutter sandwich in the hand not holding the book.

I rolled my eyes at him. “Okay old man.” I snatched the sandwich out of his hand and took a bite.

Five pinched the bridge of his nose between his fingers. “Is nothing sacred anymore?” he said dryly, reaching out to pluck his sandwich back.

I was half a second quicker and moved it out of his reach. “Just slow down so I can read along with you.”

“Oooh, oooh story time with Five!” Klaus said excitedly. In his enthusiasm he had nearly yanked a chunk of hair from my head and I let out a yelp that he ignored. “Read to us Five!”

“No,” Five replied dismissively. He saw an opportunity and snatched back his sandwich while I was distracted and took a triumphant bite out of it.

For someone who was likely the most mature of us all, his taste in snacks didn’t reflect that. He had the biggest sweet tooth of us all. I knew it was linked to his powers, like if he didn’t have enough energy he couldn’t teleport. He almost always had candy on his person and ate a fudge nutter before missions. That didn’t account for the candy that I had taken to carrying about as an emergency supply for him (which he almost always ate. That boy was heading for a mouth full of cavities if he wasn’t careful).

“Aw, are the words too big for you?” Diego taunted. This caused his hand to shake as he was removing the leg bone from the game, setting the buzzer off and lighting up the man’s nose in a brilliant red. Ben laughed as Diego let out a stream of expletives. 

“Alright then, settle down kids,” Five said like he was mocking the enthusiastic tone a kindergarten teacher would take to settle down a group of children. He moved up to sit at the other end of the sofa Klaus and I were perched on.

“Hey!” I protested when he sat right on top of my legs.

“Scooch then,” he replied. He sat up so I could retract my legs and my feet ended up resting by the side of his thigh.

“Now you’ve got to set the scene for us here. And use different voices for different characters,” Klaus insisted. His hands returned to working through my hair and creating what must be the sixteenth braid.

Five took a steadying breath. “You’re pushing it.”

Klaus pouted. “You’re no fun.”

Five ignored this. He cleared his throat and began to read. “At these words, both Harry and Ron glanced, grinning at Hermione grinning who looked startled at the news that books wouldn't be much help in this subject.”

“No, no! You can’t just dive right in at the middle of a chapter! What kind of storyteller are you?” Klaus protested, flinging his arms up in indignation and dragging half of my head with it.

“Ow Klaus!” I yelped, grabbing my hair.

“Oops,” he apologised.

“This was a mistake,” Five mused, closing the book.

“I haven’t read past that part yet,” a voice said from the hall. Vanya was stood there holding her violin.

I saw Five and Diego exchange a look. He and Ben stopped in their game of ‘Operation’ to sit cross-legged on the floor. Ben shifted on the floor slightly away from Diego to create a Vanya-sized space between them. “Come sit,” Ben told Vanya. A smile lit up the girl’s usually sullen face and she grabbed a pillow from a nearby chair to sit on between the two boys.

I also gave Klaus a look, one that told him to shut up. We all knew that Vanya was the odd-one-out of us all and she didn’t get to spend as much time with us as we did with each other, so every now and then something like this would happen. We would band together for her sake and every sibling spat would cease.

“Continue, bard,” Klaus said wistfully, waving his hand airily in Five’s direction.

Five rolled his eyes at his brother. “Many witches and wizards, talented though they are in the area of loud bangs and smells and sudden disappearing, or yet unable to penetrate the veiled mysteries of the future…”

The inflection of his words changed as he continued to read. More expression and emotion came through as the words poured out of his mouth and it was nothing short of magical. The six of us were just normal kids there, reading Harry Potter instead of mission briefings. I watched Five as he read to us, mesmerised by his reading. The chapter came to a close and Five went to continue reading, but halfway through the next chapter I prodded him with my foot as I noticed something.

“What?” Five looked perturbed at this.

I held my finger to my lips to tell him to shush. I gestured to the rest of his siblings and understanding dawned on his face. His mouth made an ‘O’ shape at the sight of everyone, bar the two of us, passed out where they had been sitting. Klaus had just begun to let out tiny little snores and Diego had his head tipped back and his mouth was wide open. Ben’s head was resting against Vanya’s shoulder and her forehead was against Diego’s upper arm.

“Wow, you must have bored them to sleep with your horrible reading,” I quipped sarcastically at him.

Five let out a small chuckle. “If I’d known it was this easy to get them to shut up I would have tried this years ago.”

He then let out a yawn. I quirked my eyebrow at him. “Long mission, huh?”

“Ugh, the longest. You should be glad you weren’t there.”

“Looking at how tired you all are, I kinda am. But as much as I don’t like going on missions, I missed being there with you all. The house is quiet without everyone.”

Five leaned in towards me and lowered his voice. “Now you know how Vanya feels.”

I nodded sadly in response. “It must be so lonely for her. I know Grave and Pogo are here but…it’s a very big house and she’s a very small girl.”

Five’s fists clenched slightly around his book. His face hardened somewhat, and he took a deep breath. “How different would it be if it’d been Luther without powers? Or me? I can’t imagine what she’s been through. This family is dysfunctional at best, and Vanya is the anomaly.”

I took a moment to process his words and take in his change of demeanour. “You really care about her, don’t you?”

“She’s my sister,” he bounced back immediately, fixing me with his blue gaze. “She-she brings out a different side of me. Everyone else, it’s easy to be snarky and cold to them but Vanya? She’s… _warm_ , despite everything in her life that should have made her cold. She’s the most human of us all, I think.”

I sat up, gently moving off Klaus’ lap as to not disturb him. “You two really get each other, huh?”

Five smiled. “I suppose we do.”

“Despite that you’re both like, _complete_ opposites. She’s human and warm and you’re-”

“Cold and robotic?” he quipped, smirking.

“Took the words right out of my mouth,” I joked. “But in all seriousness Five, I wouldn’t have bet on you two being so close. It must be nice for her to have you.”

“And for me to have her. She’s not just my sister, she’s my friend.”

* * *

_The seventeenth of August, 2001: Baby’s first…tattoo?_

I had been re-introduced to the team shortly after the day that Five had read to us. There had been an explosion at a wind farm and they needed someone to help fix the generators there and, seeing as I was the one immune to electricity, I was the only one they could send in.

We all made mistakes in missions and we all thought that we were the member of the team who made the most mistakes. Yet I knew it was me that tended to be the weak link. I hadn’t been raised the same way the others had and I always felt like I was a second too slow, a step behind everyone else. The training they’d had before I’d joined the Academy was a huge advantage to them and I was always left playing catch up. Even my powers weren’t as refined as everyone else’s.

“I hate these tracksuits,” I cringed, tugging at the sleek, bright green material of my jacket.

“Someone’s grumpy,” Allison remarked. I made a face at her. She was, however, right. I had just returned from a two-day long trip to see my parents who had travelled to Florida for the summer break. They’d arranged for us to spend a day in Disney World and it had been one of the happiest days of my life. I had managed to smuggle some memorabilia back into the Academy and a pair of sparkly Mickey ears were now perched on my dresser. Klaus had pinched the matching pink and silver version within minutes of me returning to the house. Right now, however, we were all standing at the bottom of one of the Academy’s many long, twisting staircases, ready to begin some training.

“Nietzsche once said ‘Man is as a rope stretched between the animal and the superhuman; a rope over an abyss. It is a dangerous crossing, a dangerous looking back, a dangerous trembling and halting.” Hargreeves stood at the top of the staircase with Vanya at his side. He spoke down on us before scribbling down some notes in his red notebook as we huddled together in anticipation. Upon closing of said notebook, Vanya blew a whistle and started her stopwatch.

The seven of us bashed into each other as we hurtled up the stairs. Diego shoved Allison into a wall and Luther pushed him towards the banister in retaliation. I yanked Klaus back by his collar and sped on by him as Five materialised in front of me.

“As much as you must strive for individual greatness, and strive you must, for it won't come to you of its own accord, you must also remember that there is no individual stronger than the collective,” Hargreeves continued.

Our feet pounded against the stairs as we raced towards our goal. Bright red wallpaper accented by the multiple black and white silhouette images Sir had all but slammed into the plaster whirled by us as we climbed. Diego, followed by Luther, lead the charge. Then it was a close call between Allison, Ben and I with Klaus pulling up the rear. Five, the little asshole, Blinked in to first place.

“That’s not fair, Five’s cheating!” Diego exclaimed, clearly annoyed by this turn of events.

“He adapted,” Hargreeves deadpanned. Of course, this was an excellent display of Five’s powers in action. While Luther was the one that their dad was ‘warmest’ to, it was clear that Five’s power was of the greatest interest to him. Ever since the night of the fire at the mall, Hargreeves has been pushing Five the hardest out of us all.

_I had just gotten ready for bed when I heard heavy footsteps coming up the staircase. I wiped the excess toothpaste away from my mouth and exited the communal bathroom, where Allison was arguing with Klaus over finding his hair in her hairbrush. I recognised the footsteps, but they were much more sluggish than normal, like they were dragging the person they belonged to along._

_Five appeared out of the gloom. His face shone with sweat and his hair was plastered to his head and face. He breathed heavily and placed a hand on the wall for support. He looked like a ghost by how pale his pallor currently was._

_“Five, what’s wrong?” I asked concernedly. I went over to try and help him out but he waved me away._

_“I’m okay,” he replied. His voice was much steadier than I thought it was going to be._

_I rolled my eyes internally before slinging his arm around my shoulder, propping him up on the way to his room. I rotated the handle on his door and let him in and he promptly collapsed heavily on his bed._

_“Five…” I started as I gently sat down on his bed._

_He groggily slung an arm across his eyes. “Just wanna sleep,” he mumbled out._

_I stared down at him. “Five, you can’t go to sleep like this. You need to brush your teeth and get your pyjamas on and…have a shower.” I said._

_“No,” he protested, for once sounding like the pre-teen boy he was._

_I leaned in further towards him curiously. I felt like I needed to investigate this. “Was your dad pushing you too hard again?”_

_In response he sat up agitatedly. He clenched his hands together like he was going to Blink, but instead faint waves radiated from him. It was like he was trying to open a portal but couldn’t. Then it dawned on me._

_“You’re so tired you can’t Blink.”_

_A humourless smile crossed his face. “Used my power too much. Even I have limits.”_

_“Your dad made you do this?” I questioned, confusion over why Sir would push his star student as hard as this._

_“He just wants to know what my limits are. Once we know, then we can start expanding. Think of me as a reservoir of energy. Every time I jump, the reservoir depletes. Dad thinks that if we keep doing that, the reservoir will get bigger and I’ll be able to Blink more.”_

_He said it so…_ rationally _. It was like he didn’t realise that his father was causing him physical stress-harm, even. He went along with it because he had been raised in this environment, but it was more than that; it was an innate thing, like something was wired in him to be pushed, that he was constantly evolving and getting better. While Vanya and Diego were expressive and human and emotional, Five wasn’t. He was machine-like in many ways, and I didn’t realise how much that scared me until right now._

_I sighed and stood up. “You’re not just a science experiment to be tampered with, Five. You’re a human being.”_

_Five nodded slightly in response. He no longer looked as ghost-like as he had. The sweat had dried into his skin and some colour returned to his cheeks. He didn’t look like he was about to collapse or vomit everywhere, and so I took this as my cue to leave._

_“Take a shower, I can smell you through the wall,” I called to him from over my shoulder as I walked out of his room._

_“Yes, ma’am.”_

“The ties that bind you together make you stronger than you are alone. They will make you impervious to the pain and hardship the world will thrust upon you. And believe me when I tell you, life will be hard. It will be painful. We can accomplish anything when we accept responsibility together. This is what creates trust.”

He finished just as Klaus reached the top of the staircase, puffing and panting and holding onto the bannister to keep him up. As his powers weren’t physically based like Luther’s or Diego’s, his physical prowess reflected that. Hargreeves opened his book with a snappy, elegant swish and began scrawling down notes onto the pages in front of him. A few moments of prolonged silence followed, punctuated by only our breathing and Sir’s pen scratching against paper.

“That being said,” he started, snapping his book closed with a flourish, “it is time for you all to commemorate that bond. Permanently. We will continue with your group physical training for now, but I want you all freshened up in time for dinner.”

As soon as his back was turned, we all looked at each other. What was the old bastard on about now?

The tinkling of the dinner bell rung out. I had been one of the last to get a shower and was running slightly behind as a result. I pulled my brown curls back into a half-up half-down style with an untidy, rushed bun securing the half that was up. I was the last to arrive in the foyer and when I saw what was there, I was momentarily stunned.

A burly, tattooed man (who frankly, wouldn’t look out of place in a biker gang) was stood beside Sir. A line of wooden chairs had been set out which faced a much more intimidating black and metal one.

“What is this?” Diego spoke up, saying what we were all thinking.

“The purpose of this is to produce a permanent reminder of the bond between you,” Hargreeves replied, “to remind you that you are stronger united.” He eyeballed us all in that way that made us feel like he was looking straight through us before settling on Klaus, “Number Four, take a seat.”

Klaus walked nervously towards the metal chair. There was a shaky look to him; he was clearly scared of what was going to happen. His eyes were wide and I could hear his breathing change from where I stood on the other side of the foyer from him.

The rest of us took a seat. Allison was sat at the end closest to the tattoo artist, followed by Diego, Luther, myself, Ben and then Five. I turned to Ben and gave him a perplexed look and he replied by shrugging. It was clear that none of us were comprehending what was about to happen here. We were six weeks away from our twelfth birthday and Sir couldn’t be seriously going through with this. He wouldn’t, it was all a scare tactic, he would stop, he-

Klaus started to whimper. The tattoo artist had fired up his needle, causing an incessant buzzing to fill our ears. Klaus’s left forearm was exposed and had been cleaned until it was sterile, awaiting the moment that needle touched skin and left it inked forever. The needle touched skin. Klaus continued to whimper and looked over to us, his eyes pleading with us to make it stop. None of us could do anything though. We couldn’t stand up against Hargreeves because regardless of what we said or did, this would go ahead.

As Klaus’s whines began to get louder, Sir merely stared. At one point he went and gripped Klaus’ arm in his hand to hold it steady. It was agonising to watch, and we would have to watch this another six times.

After what seemed like an eternity, the tattoo artist sat back from Klaus and pulled the needle away from his arm. Whatever he had etched on Number Four’s skin, it had been completed. Klaus continued to whimper as he stood up, helped by Grace, and stood off to the side clutching his left arm. It was then that I caught a glimpse of what had been inked there. I almost scoffed out loud when I saw it sitting there, in black ink, surrounded by irritated red skin.

For what else could it have been but an umbrella?

Allison went next. She silently cried throughout and quietly sobbed afterwards. Luther’s body was tense the whole time she was in the chair and even I felt sorry for her. Diego was as still as a statue during his. At one point, Grace made a movement to comfort him, but he flinched away from her. Hurt flashed across her face but that quickly remoulded itself into a smile as she looked at Sir. Halfway through Diego’s tattoo, he left.

Luther took it like a champ. There was one point he let out a particularly loud hiss of pain and I felt my left hand being grabbed. Ben was staring at Luther and there was such a look of fear on his face at knowing that he was next. I don’t even think he realised that he had reached for my hand until I shifted mine in his grip to hold it better. He turned to me, sweet, naïve Ben, and squeezed my hand tightly. He held it until Luther was standing by the others who’d been inked.

Ben was trying to be strong, but he was a sensitive boy. He squirmed in the chair each time the needle pulled away from his skin for a moment and perspiration beaded on his brow. I didn’t know why but his experience affected me the most and I just couldn’t look at him. I inclined my head slightly towards Five. He didn’t acknowledge me but he, for once, looked pensive.

I blocked out most of my experience. My power meant my nerve endings were always hypersensitive, so I felt things twice as intensely as everyone else; even those in my right hand that had experienced a fairly serious trauma on our first mission. Grace eventually had to hold down my wrist to get the tattoo finished, but that I only vaguely remember. What I could recall, was stinging pain like I was being nipped a thousand times in one spot.

I looked at my wrist when it was done. Black ink marred what once had been pasty white Irish skin and the contrast was jarring to me. Finally, Five was done too. He barely flinched throughout, but like Ben I saw perspiration on his forehead. The seven of us had subconsciously gathered in a circle and held out our wrists. Seven black umbrellas were presented: a physical representation of our bond.

“Alright children, time for dinner!” Grace chimed in, her cheery voice an unsettling contrast to the sobering mood that had settled on us.

* * *

_The 23 rd of November, 2002: Oh, there ain’t no rest for the wicked._

A nuclear threat in the Middle East. An assassin’s guild in Edinburgh. Taking down a South African drug cartel. Helping save the Great Barrier Reef from an oil spill. Stopping a wildfire in California. Uncovering a ring of dirty MI6 agents in the Antarctic. Those were just some of the missions we’d undertaken recently.

“Did you see how Diego killed Eiffel? That was insane, dude!” Ben chattered as we walked back into the Academy.

“And how we all took down the tower? Never thought I would see the Eiffel tower horizontally,” Allison mused.

Two steps into the house and the mission alarm started blaring. We all let out groans of protest at this. The past three weeks had been mission after mission, and we had barely managed to eat and sleep in between them. Of course, knowing our rotten luck, the second we got home to relax, we had to leave again.

“To the car,” Sir declared as he strode past us.

Ben slung his arm around my shoulders. “I just wanna sleep,” he moaned.

I sniffed his armpit dramatically. “Maybe you should prioritise a shower first,” I teased.

“Hey!” Ben huffed. The dynamics in the Academy were constantly changing. Klaus and Luther had gotten closer recently, as had Diego and Five. Ben and I had also gotten closer and it was…nice.

We all did a one-eighty and piled into the car. I was squished in between Luther and Five, who had been particularly cool to me recently.

“A fire has broken out at the Arcadian electrical plant,” Sir started. We all let out another simultaneous groan.

“Again?” I grumbled.

“There’s must be a fire there every other week!” Luther exclaimed. He was right; out of all the places we were called to on mission, this place was the most frequent. Although I hadn’t been a primary task taker for the last few missions, anything to do with the electrical plant (or electricity) usually fell to me. It wasn’t hard to guess why, seeing as I could generate electricity and was immune to electrical currents. I didn’t know to what extent that immunity stretched to regarding voltage, but I had never had any problems before.

“Quiet!” Sir boomed. “There are also reports of live wires producing off-the-scale levels of current. It’s not safe for anyone to get in there currently and shut them off.”

“So, Izzie’s going to do the whole mission by herself again, right?” Allison said, slightly bitterly.

“You are all part of the same team. You wouldn’t ask a fish to climb a tree over a monkey, but the fish still has its role in the ecosystem,” he prattled on, speaking in his usual bonkers way, “the rest of you will help with the evacuation and getting the fire under control.”

“Where are the wires?” I asked. Sir turned to me with a set of blueprints of the plant and circled an area just off to the middle of the building lines.

“Five will get you to here,” he said, pointing to a hallway slightly south of the area he had circled as the danger zone. “The main breakers are also where these live wires are. Avoid them, flip the breakers, and we go home. It is a simple task, Number Eight.”

Five Blinked us into the plant. “Good luck,” he said before Blinking away.

I made a face at this. Five had been spending a lot of his time over the past few weeks with Vanya and Diego, especially the latter when we were on missions. I didn’t like that we were drifting slightly but…maybe me getting close with Ben had something to do with it. That little crush I had on Ben had waxed and waned for the past few years, and at the moment my feelings for him were on the increase. Not that either of us would ever act on them…I think.

The corridor was familiar but generic. It had white walls pockmarked by wooden doors and grey linoleum floors, with fluorescent lights overhead breaking up the white ceiling tiles. The lights above me were flickering crazily and the glow the bulbs produced got brighter and dimmer as electricity surged erratically through them.

I could hear the sparking of the fallen livewires coming from a room down the corridor. I activated my earpiece and heard Sir’s voice crackle through. “I’m approaching the live wires,” I informed him.

“Good,” he replied bluntly. Our Reginald really wasn’t much of a talker.

I walked speedily down the corridor to the room I could hear most noise from. Not only could I hear electrical sparks, but I could also hear the wires slapping against the floor. I hadn’t been nervous before, but upon hearing this I realised that this task wouldn’t be as easy as I initially thought. The door had been left slightly ajar and I pushed it open with my foot. Inside was a large room filled with switchboards and wires and metal boxes with multicoloured lights on them. I could only see all of this in flashes as the livewires, that had fallen from the ceiling, let out bright white flashes of light. It was like trying to navigate through a jungle except the vines were supercharged.

“Can you see the master breaker?” Sir’s voice crackled through my earpiece.

“Any clues about what it’s supposed to look like?” I questioned. I was currently standing in the doorway trying to figure out where I should be going before jumping into the electric jungle.

“Apparently it’s in the middle of the room. It’s a grey metal box with a blue handle on it. That’s the master switch and you need to pull the handle up to break the circuit,” he explained.

I looked out into the room and my shoulders slumped. The box was, of course, right in the middle of a huge bundle of slithering livewires. It never could just be an easy in and out, could it?

“I see it,” I said. A whining sound started to increase in pitch and the wires started to jump more and become more active. Sparks flew out towards me and burnt through my blazer. “I think the energy is spiking!”

“Well, you must get a move on then!” Sir bellowed into my ear.

I watched as the wires jerked and flared. It was like I was watching it all happen in slow motion as the path before me cleared. The whining sound got louder and higher as I started to move, weaving my way in and out of the livewire jungle. One wire swung dangerously close to my head and I barely managed to twirl my way out of its path. My shins then bumped into a metal box with a blue handle on the top of it.

“Got to the master breaker,” I informed Hargreeves. I yanked on the handle, pulling it upwards.

The whining I’d been hearing suddenly came to a crescendo. Activating the breaker had somehow led to a surge in electrical power. The wires moved uncontrollably and the room filled with vicious yellow sparks. I could feel the electrical power in the air and it was…it was overwhelming. I could barely make out Sir talking in my ear as the room flashed a blinding white.

Wires swung towards me. I wasn’t fast enough to get out of the way. Then, there was nothing.

* * *

_Date unknown: Dermatologists hate her._

My eyes were heavy as I came to. Beeping sounds filled my ears. I could almost feel my body starting to wake up. I could feel…dulled pain. I felt… _weak_.

I let out a groan. My eyes could barely even open, but I saw Pogo and Grace standing over me. “Miss Izzie?” Pogo asked, his eyes filled with nervousness.

“What-” I managed to croak out. My throat was dry and scratchy with disuse. Within seconds, Grace was holding a glass of water to my lips. The first sip of the cool liquid felt like it was stabbing my oesophagus but the feeling eased as I continued to drink. I choked a little as I downed the last of the contents of the glass. “What happened?” I rasped out. The two of them looked at each other as if to ask which one of them was going to speak. Immediately I knew that something was wrong. “Just tell me,” I demanded, my voice much quieter than I was used to.

Grace took a breath. “You were in an accident,” she started.

“The powerplant?”

She nodded. “You got hit by an _entire_ _city’s_ worth of electrical power. It’s a wonder you made it out alive.”

“The mission,” I rasped out. Speaking was exhausting, but my priority was knowing how the mission went. Wait, what did Grace just say about me being ‘alive’?

“You managed to cut off the power,” Grace smiled weakly. “But…”

“Pogo,” I turned to the simian, tired of Grace beating around the bush.

He sighed and pursed his lips. “You shut off the power, but there was a massive surge when you did.”

“Was anyone hurt?” I asked worriedly.

“No, Miss Izzie. The only casualty was you.”

“Casualty?” I asked. “Does that mean I was-”

“Dead, yes. Five and Ben found you a few minutes after we lost contact with you,” he continued.

“But I’m-I’m okay, right? I’m alive? This isn’t some sort of purgatory I’ve found myself in?”

The two of them shared another look. “Izzie dear, it’s been eight weeks since the accident.”

Two months. Two. Months. “I’ve been asleep for two months?” I exclaimed, my voice breaking from the strain.

“It was a medically-induced coma. The first few days were a bit touch and go, but you pulled through,” Pogo said.

It was then that my eyes opened more widely and took in the details. Both were wearing a lot of personal protective gear. A transparent bubble of plastic surrounded me and my array of medical equipment, separating it from the rest of this room in the Academy’s medical wing. I felt my heart rate increase and the beeping on my heart monitor sped up. “What’s going on?” I replied shakily.

A lock of my hair fell into view. What once had been brown curls was now silver wisps. “When you were hit, the power…it burnt through your cells. It deadened your DNA,” Pogo explained.

“What does that mean?!” I half-shrieked hysterically.

“It means that you have stopped aging,” Pogo answered.

There was a beat of silence only punctuated by the beeping and whirring of my machines. “What?” I asked.

“Master Hargreeves has been working around the clock to try and fix this,” Pogo said. “He has conducted experiments that have shown some of your cells that are rejuvenating, but the rate is extremely low. Take your hair, for example. It is currently silver, but we hope it will become brown again in time.”

In time? “What sort of timeline are we talking here, Pogo?”

He shifted uneasily. “Well-we can’t exactly put an exact time scale on it-”

“Years,” another voice boomed. Sir had entered this plastic bubble. “It seems that your deadened DNA is holding your body together in a stable condition for now. But you will not age like the other children do. _They_ will age and _you_ will stay the same.”

“But-I’ll get older at some point right? I won’t be stuck in the body of a thirteen-year-old forever?” I questioned, panic evident on my face.

“We shall try everything we can to accelerate cell production for you. It will take time and it means you can’t leave this bubble until you can fight off infections,” he continued.

That meant my entire system had been affected. Not just the aging process, but my immune system as well.

“Well let’s get started,” I croaked, focusing on what path lay ahead of me now that this had happened. “I don’t want to be thirteen forever, so whatever you think will help, I will do. Just make me normal again.”

Hargreeves smiled.

* * *

A/N: So there we are, chapter four is done and dusted! I’ll admit I’ve been feeling a little unmotivated to write recently, but I’ve been really busy with school so maybe that’s why! I also think this is the longest chapter I've written so far for this story. Yay! 

Big thanks to aslytherinqueen, PomegranateGirl, Books_Tea, TruRebellion, and all of the guests who have left kudos since the last chapter, I really appreciate them and they help to keep me motivated. I love seeing that this story had picked up some kudos so that means people are enjoying it! I've been floored by the support this story is currently receiving. 

Also, a big thanks to everyone who has subscribed/bookmarked this story. I can’t see who you all are, but just know that I appreciate you guys so much. Thanks for joining me on this journey and lending me your support. <3.

Also, thank you to Le_M and constipatedmuse for their comments on the previous chapter. For Le_M, they have given me some really great ideas for this story, and I can’t wait to hear more about what you think of this story and this chapter!

And for constipatedmuse, your pen name always makes me giggle! Thank you for letting me know some of your favourite songs from TUA soundtrack, it’s good to know someone else appreciates it as much as I do!

Song list:

Chapter title is a lyric from the song ‘The Cave’ by Mumford and Sons. *chefs kiss*.

‘We Didn't Start the Fire’ is a song by Billy Joel.

‘There Ain’t No Rest For The Wicked’ by Cage The Elephant.

Question: who is your favourite actor in The Umbrella Academy? Personally I love Robert Sheehan, I love his personality and that we’re both from Ireland!!

For anyone else who is still here, let me know your thoughts on this story so far! Leave a comment/kudos if you’re feeling it. They make me so happy and keep me motivated!!

Until next time, stay safe everyone! Love, SunnySci :)).


	5. I'll Be Your Rabbit In The Headlights

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jumping in time always makes writing things a little choppy. Izzie heals, Klaus spirals, Five freezes.

Chapter Five: I'll Be Your Rabbit In The Headlights

* * *

_September the ninth, 2004: Breaking quarantine._

Two hundred and thirty three days. Or, thirty three weeks and two days. Or five thousand, five hundred and ninety-two hours. That’s how long it had been since I left my ‘Bubble’. I ate and slept and defecated and read and listened to music all in one room, my only visitors being Grace and Pogo. Occasionally, Sir would momentarily pop in and out for updates.

The other children would also stop by. In the weeks following my accident none of them had been allowed to see me, leaving them completely in the dark other than knowing that I was alive. On the first day I’d been allowed visitors, they stood outside the Bubble donned in full protective gear. I never forgot the looks on their faces when they saw me lying there, hooked up to about a dozen machines, with hair as white as snow.

That was the only thing about me that made me look old. In the time between the accident and the present day, which was just under ten months, the other kids had aged accordingly. My biological clock had barely moved forward by two _days_. I could see the changes happening in their bodies-Klaus had shot up half a foot in height, Diego had lost his baby fat, Vanya and Allison had curves in places where I should have them if I wasn’t stuck in biological stasis.

It had been months of dozens of experimental trials. They initially used CRISPR/Cas gene editing to try and kickstart my DNA into replicating again, which was revolutionary and far ahead of its time. Then it was being pumped full of nucleotides and chemicals and God knows what else. However, today was significant in that I could have visitors other than Pogo, Grace and Hargreeves into this Bubble. It would be the first time in months I’d actually be able to _touch_ the others.

It had been a long road and there was still a major climb ahead, but progress was progress. While I wasn’t physically aging like I should, my immune system had been the first real sign of hope that things were starting to go in the right direction for me. I even swore to Grace that I saw a hair of mine that looked darker than the others, so that had to mean things were going well, right? She just laughed it off and continued to nurse me.

And so, the seven of them arrived. All of them filed in individually and I had some time with each of them; even with Allison, and it had been the most normal conversation we’d ever had, albeit it was short. It was a reassuring touch on the shoulder from Luther, an awkward hug from Diego, prolonged cuddles from Klaus and Ben and a violin performance from Vanya. From Five, it was a simple hand hold and some off-the-cuff snipes at each other.

Time marched on for my friends. It stayed still for me.

* * *

_December the twenty-fourth, 2004, Evening: Have a holly, jolly Christmas._

My immune system was still leaps and bounds ahead of the rest of my body. We had tried heat intensive experiments, pressure-intensive ones, acupuncture, tai-chi and more experimental treatments. I didn’t know where Hargreeves was getting the drugs and ideas from, but I was willing to try anything to start aging again. Yet, it seemed like all I could do was wait for my body to heal itself. Healthy cells were being produced, just not quickly enough. It also meant I was going through puberty _painfully_ slowly.

It was my Christmas present from Pogo and Grace that I could finally leave the Bubble. It had been months since I had stepped foot outside of this room without any protective gear and it was liberating. Hargreeves allocated half an hour to celebrate Christmas Eve and two hours to Christmas day, but otherwise it was business as usual for the other kids. Klaus had excitedly told me about some mission Luther had slipped up in and revelled in the fact that his dad’s golden child had made a mistake. I missed going on missions. I missed feeling powerful; I’d barely been able to spark up a light bulb since the night of the accident. My power wasn’t my main focus right now though: it was letting my body heal. Just how long that would take, no-one knew.

I bounded down the staircase excitedly to the dining room where the other children were setting up the Christmas tree. We were only allowed to put it up on Christmas Eve and it had to be taken down by Boxing Day at the latest.

Klaus was spinning around the room with tinsel draped around his arms while Ben and Vanya were picking through a box of decorations. Allison was helping Luther put up the Christmas tree while Diego and Five set the table for the festive breakfast we’d have in the morning. I was wearing my new Christmas jumper from Grace, which she made us every year like Molly Weasley did in Harry Potter for her kids. All of them matched colour-wise but Grace added detailed to make them unique to us. Vanya’s had little violins sewn into the sleeves, Diego’s had little compartments where he could hide his knives, Ben’s had a tiny cartoon octopus on his left breast pocket. I had a little lightning bolt on mine, whereas Five’s had a little stitched version of Saturn and Klaus’s was just very sparkly.

Grace hurried down after me as I entered the dining room. A huge smile was on my face as I saw everybody bustling around being busy with the Christmas celebrations. A gasp came from Klaus. “Did I conjure you, or are you really here?” he asked, his hands up to his face in a motion of prayer.

“Like I’d come if you called me to,” I replied cheekily with a roll of my eyes. He opened his arms widely and swept me up in a big hug. Ben and Diego joined soon after.

“It’s a Christmas miracle!” Klaus declared with a swish of tinsel.

I couldn’t help _but_ smile.

_A few hours later…_

“I just don’t know what’s going on with him, you know?” I admitted to Klaus. The two of us sat opposite each other on his bed and mirrored each other’s cross-legged pose. We’d been having a deep, meaningful conversation for the last while, talking about everything and anything. Right now, it about was how Ben was acting towards me and how I was dealing with my feelings for him.

“It’s because you’ve known each other for so long,” he continued, jiggling his feet, “besides, you’ve also been completely AWOL for the past year.”

I smacked his shoulder lightly. “That was not my fault nor my intention, you eejit.”

Klaus sighed. “Ah, young love and Irish insults.”

“I don’t love Ben, Klaus,” I grumbled.

“Yeah, you do. You’re just not _in_ love with him,” Klaus clarified, picking dirt out of his toenails.

“Gross,” I reprimanded him, scrunching my nose up in disgust.

“Look, just don’t go full Luther-and-Allison on us, okay? Things are weird enough in this house as it is,” he said, continuing to pick at his toenails.

“I wouldn’t dream of it,” I replied with a smile. “How about you? How had your dad been with you?” I continued gently. The topic was one I tended to tip-toe around. It was like walking on eggshells when you broached the subject with him.

He shrugged non-concomitantly in response. In my time imprisoned in the Bubble, Ben had told me some disturbing news about how his dad was treating Klaus. When I asked why Klaus had never mentioned about it to me, Ben gently reminded me that he and the others had been kept in the dark about me for months. They had found me and I was _dead_ , so Ben explained that the others hadn’t been telling me things because of my fragile state. Despite being angry about this at first, I understood where they were coming from. Klaus and Vanya had been having it the worst with their dad since the start of the year. Vanya continued to be ignored by her adoptive dad and Klaus…he had been trapped in a mausoleum for days on end. All to do with strengthening his abilities apparently.

When Ben had told me, I was ready to rip off every senor and needle that had been attached to my body and go throw hands with Hargreeves. Ben talked me out of it, saying that Klaus didn’t want our pity. He just needed us to be there for him. Ben had also brought up the fact that he and Five had been the ones to find me when I was dead and…well, how that had affected the two of them was a conversation for another time.

“It’s okay if you don’t want to talk about it. Just know that I’m always here if you need me,” I reassured him.

“Thanks, Iz. I’ve missed you,” he said, pulling me into another big hug.

“I’ve missed you too. I’ve even missed you painting my nails.”

There was a mischievous glint in his eye and he smiled at me. I let out a sigh and rolled my eyes jokingly at him.

“I _may_ have borrowed Allison’s new baby blue polish?” he suggested, tapping his fingers together.

I gave him a sceptical look. “By borrowed, you mean swiped it from her room three months ago, right?”

“Maybe,” he dragged out meekly.

I sighed and pulled the Christmas themed socks off my feet. “Fine, but only my toenails.”

* * *

_December the thirty-first, 2004: Auld Lang Syne._

I stood on the roof of the house watching the myriad of colours explode above me. I leant in against Ben, his arm wrapped innocently around my shoulders and causing butterflies to erupt in my chest. Ben’s other arm was wrapped around a stumbling Klaus. He had been on another trip to the mausoleum yesterday and it seemed to be his undoing. Tonight, as soon as Hargreeves had left the house, Klaus had broken into his father’s liquor supply and drunk at least half a bottle of vodka. Sober Klaus and Drunk Klaus weren’t too different actually, except he stumbled about more. He still talked the biggest load of shit, which was entertaining (or annoying, depending on your mood) regardless of alcohol consumption.

Vanya stood by Five, the two of them looking more reclusive than ever. While I was really enjoying this time with the other kids, as soon as the fireworks ended Five and Vanya left, casting blank looks in our direction and judgemental ones at Klaus.

“Happy New Year,” I turned to Ben, smiling softly up at him.

“Happy New Year to you, too,” he replied, a hint of nervousness in his voice.

I leant up and kissed him lightly on the cheek. It lasted barely a second, but it had my cheeks burning and heart pounding. I looked away from him embarrassed, thinking I’d stepped over a line. But all he did was hold me closer.

That is, until Klaus threw up on my shoes.

* * *

_January the twenty-second, 2005: The Name Game_.

“Five, why didn’t you choose a name like the rest of us?” Klaus asked, sprawled out on the living room sofa and tossing a half-eaten apple above his head and catching it repeatedly.

All eight of us were in the rare situation that we’d all gathered in the same place. It was our Saturday afternoon ‘free time’ block and we had all decided to stay inside thanks to a freak storm in the area. Luther and Allison had decided to grace us with their presence and were playing cards with Vanya and Ben. I sat on the floor in front of Klaus and lay my head back on his thigh, too tired to do anything other than stare at the ceiling.

Diego was passed out on the other sofa. His training had become more intense recently and it meant he was permanently exhausted. That, coupled with the fact he could sleep anywhere, meant that he was almost always napping.

Five was sitting on a wingback chair beside the sofa Diego was snoozing on. “I don’t know, I didn’t like any of them.”

“So, you’d prefer to be known as a numerical value than an actual name?” I asked perplexed, snapping my head up to address him.

“It’s _unique_ ,” he snapped, enunciating the word crisply and leaning towards me slightly. The motion was an intimidating one.

“Alright, keep your knickers on,” I shot back, returning my head to Klaus’ thigh. Ever since Christmas, Five had become a lot snappier and short-tempered with me. We had drifted, as I feared we would, but I hadn’t expected this changed in attitude to accompany it.

“I like that we got to choose our names,” Ben piped up. Five scoffed at this.

“It was nice for Mom to let us choose names from the country we were born in,” Allison continued, “it made the mission in Paris more meaningful to me, knowing that that’s where I’m from.”

“Doesn’t it bother you though?” Klaus mused. “That there are people out there biologically related to us? Like, we came from those people, and we have relatives-other families-out there.”

“And they gave us up for money,” Five cut in, a cruel edge to his voice.

Silence swamped the room. Five wasn’t wrong but…it was the _way_ he said it. It was cruel and callous, and it was obvious that the others were hurt and annoyed. I, on the other hand, didn’t have the right to be upset at this considering I had my family back in Ireland that I regularly corresponded with. My two siblings, Louis and Anna, as well as my parents sent letters all of the time and I kept them all in a box under my bed. Regardless, while I couldn’t really empathise with the Hargreeves siblings, I could sympathise for them. Five had crossed a line into dangerous, hurtful territory when he’d made that comment.

“Do you get off on being a dick?” Diego directed at Five.

“Just stating the facts,” Five replied casually, not one ounce of regret shown for what he’d said.

“Five, that was uncalled for,” I spoke up, lifting my head back up again.

“Says the girl who isn’t adopted,” he commented snidely.

I threw my hands up in the air in frustration, irritation bubbling up inside of me. Recently, that irritation was never far away when I spoke to Five because of his snappy approach towards me. “What is with the attitude, Five?”

“Nothing.”

“Well then act like it,” I shot back sharply, fuming at him. I stood up and stormed out of the room, ruining what could have been a lovely afternoon of sibling bonding.

Ben was the one who found me later. He didn’t even speak to me, he just held my hand and let me know that if I needed to talk, he was there.

* * *

_February the fourth, 2005: Healing_.

I cried to Ben that morning. A small cut I’d gotten three weeks ago had finally healed. For a normal kid that would have taken a matter of days to heal; for me, the time scale was much longer. Everything just had piled on top of me and I needed someone there. Ben was so sweet and he was a brilliant listener, but even after I offloaded onto him, I was still unhappy.

Then Ben did something that blew me away. His brown eyes studied me, making me feel extremely self-conscious, and reached to my hair. He pulled down a single strand and held it in front of my eyes.

“Iz, what colour is that?” he asked me.

“Haha, very funny, I’ve heard all of the old person jokes from Klaus and Five already,” I said, waving him away dismissively.

“Izzie…” he trailed off, looking as serious as a heart attack.

It took my eyes a moment to focus, but pinched in between Ben’s fingers was a coloured strand of hair. A _brown_ strand of hair.

“No way!” I gasped excitedly, taking the strand from his fingers and cradling it in my hands.

“You’re officially not an old woman anymore,” Ben joked.

* * *

_February the eighth, 2005: We don’t talk anymore_.

I smiled at Ben across the dinner table. It was becoming increasingly difficult to suppress my feelings for him, with every look I got from him making butterflies flutter in my stomach. I continued to eat my dinner as an audio about how to survive falling into freezing water droned in the background: Sir’s choice of music/life lesson for this evening. As we finished dessert, the bell that meant we were to be dismissed tinkled and we filed out of the dining room.

“I thought you said you weren’t gonna let you and Ben become the new Allison and Luther,” Klaus mumbled to me as we made our way to our rooms.

“Oh, shut up,” I replied, unable to prevent my cheeks from flushing.

“Well, at least you two aren’t siblings,” Klaus said, accompanied by a dramatic shiver of disgust.

I wrinkled my nose at this. “I mean, they aren’t biologically related.”

“In some parts of America that wouldn’t even bother people,” Klaus replied.

I swatted his shoulder. “That big mouth of yours is gonna get you in trouble someday.”

Klaus dug around under his bed and pulled out a bottle filled with amber liquid. Ever since his last trip to the mausoleum, he had kind of…well, spiralled. It had started with him drinking at New Years and throwing up on my shoes, where he had profusely apologised and swore he would never drink again. Fast forward a few weeks and he had made it a habit of stealing his dad’s liquor and drinking himself into submission.

Of course, his siblings and I were worried about this becoming a problem, but it just seemed that no-one had the time for each other anymore. Our studies and training were becoming more intense by the week. When we weren’t studying or training, we were eating, sleeping, or on a mission. Yet we had all silently agreed that we needed to band together and keep a closer eye on Klaus. Ben and Diego were the best to deal with him when he was in a drunken state, but tonight that responsibility had seemingly been left to me. We just didn’t want this to become a major problem for the séance.

Worryingly though, he was talking to people who weren’t there. He had always done this, but his connection with the dead seemed to be getting stronger as he spoke to them more frequently than he had before his trips to the mausoleum. Ben had heard him up in the night screaming at the voices, yelling at them in his sleep. Klaus had always been kooky, but this…this was next level. His trips to the mausoleum were clearly scarring him, and his father saw this and yet _still_ made him endure that, all for the sake of developing his power. We were super-powered machines to that man and nothing more; we weren’t seen as the children we were.

Klaus extended the bottle towards me. “Do you want some?” he asked, holding the bottle out to me. On the one hand, if I drank some there’d be less for him, but on the other hand I didn’t want to seem like I condoned this.

“Shouldn’t you check my ID first?” I replied evasively.

He merely shrugged and took another swig. “Suit yourself.”

There was a moment of quiet before I spoke. “Are you okay, Klaus?” I asked. It was a direct question that I hoped he would answer truthfully.

Klaus giggled slightly maniacally. “Do I look okay? Have I ever _been_ okay? I hear the dead in my head and I see people that no-one else can. Every _day_ they talk louder, and I see more people. I can’t turn it off except with the help of Captain Morgan and Smirnoff.”

He took another big swig of whiskey, choking on it before starting to giggle again. I looked to the door and saw Ben and Diego looking in through the ajar door, their faces filled with concern. Klaus suddenly stopped laughing and his body slumped against me. Faint snores came from him. I looked up to the door, not quite knowing what to do. The boys filed in and joined me on the bed with Klaus.

“I’ll take first watch,” Diego said, taking charge, “just in case he throws up.”

I nodded at Diego, silently thanking him. Ben and I manoeuvred Klaus so that he was sleeping on his side. The three of us all used to be able to fit on the bed comfortably but now it was more like we were sardines in a can. Ben and I lay on either side of Klaus, with Klaus facing me and Ben lying by his back so that he wouldn’t roll onto his back in the night.

“I forgot how bony he was,” Ben stated as he shuffled about his spot on the bed, moving Klaus’s elbow so it wasn’t digging him in the gut.

“Yeah, he’s always been scrawny,” Diego replied slightly brusquely, yet he smiled a little at his brother’s sleeping form.

“Wake one of us when you need to switch out,” I said to Diego who was sitting in Klaus’s desk chair.

“And make sure that you do tap out, Diego. You need to sleep too,” Ben said. He knew what his brother was like. He knew that Diego cared more than what he let on and that he would put himself last to help others and put them first. It was an admirable quality, but a dangerous and self-destructive one too.

Diego simply folded his arms and watched over the three of us as we lay in the too-small bed.

“Goodnight, you guys,” I mumbled a few moments later as I felt myself slipping away into sleep.

“Goodnight,” they mumbled back.

For the first night in a long time, Klaus slept through the night. Diego did not, watching over his brother as a constant, vigilant guardian.

* * *

_February the twenty-seventh, 2005: Can’t play on broken strings._

I stormed after Five, nearly running after him as we moved through the corridors of the house after returning from this afternoon’s mission. “We need to talk,” I fumed at him.

“No, we don’t,” he replied over his shoulder.

I grabbed his forearm and pulled him back. “I disagree.”

His blue eyes flicked up and down my form judgementally, as if saying ‘you have the audacity to touch me?’ “Well that’s your opinion,” he replied acidly.

“Oh, don’t be such an asshat.”

“I have no idea what you mean.”

“Oh, so you’re also stupid as well as an arse?”

“Again, your opinion,” he replied, ripping his arm from my grasp.

“You think that stunt you pulled was funny? You know I can’t get hurt and recover like you guys can,” I continued, following after him as he stomped down the corridor.

“Maybe you shouldn’t have been there then, trying to play the hero when you can’t even use your powers,” he snapped back, whirling around to face me.

“So, you’re blaming me for my accident? The one where I got zapped by a city’s _annual quota_ ’s worth of electricity? The one where I _stopped aging_?” I bombarded him with questions in an attempt to get him to think. I folded my arms and looked dead into his eyes, my slate blue ones clashing with his vivid blue gaze.

“That’s not what I said!” he yelled, going from cool and calm with a slight hint of frustration to full blown angry in a second. His eyes were wide and his breathing was heavy as he shouted.

“Then what are you trying to say, Five? I can’t read your mind and you refuse to talk to me!” I yelled back, pulling myself up to my full height. Admittedly, since I hadn’t been able to grow for the past year, that meant I was stuck at just under five foot, whereas he was half a foot taller.

“No, you stopped talking to me!”

I stepped back from him slightly. “What does that mean?” I replied calmly. The shouting at each other was going to end up in a massive yelling match and considering that this was the first time Five had so much as looked at me in weeks, I didn’t want to ruin this opportunity to talk to him.

“You’ve been spending all your time with Klaus and Ben that you stopped talking to me!” he shot back in a raised voice.

“That’s not true!” I shot back instinctively before his words sank in. “Is it?” I replied, thinking about what he had said.

“The fact that you even have to ask that speaks volumes, Isabel,” he shot back, a quiet anger in his voice.

My temper flared at this. “You’ve seen what’s been going on with Klaus recently, Five. I’d be a bad friend if I didn’t look out for him.”

Five scoffed. “And what about the rest of us? What about Vanya and Diego?”

“You guys aren’t going through something like Klaus is.”

“How do you know that? Hmm?” he questioned, moving towards me until there were mere inches between us. “You’ve been so caught up with Klaus that you can’t see what else is going on.”

My eyes widened slightly at this. My priority had been Klaus recently and rightly so, but had I been neglecting my other friends? “Explain,” I inquired bluntly.

“Let’s start with Diego. He’s been worried sick about you guys ever since that night the four of you spent in Klaus’ room. He won’t say anything to you or Ben, but he knows you guys haven’t slept well since Klaus started drinking and he feels like if he says anything to you guys about it, you’ll turn on him.”

“That’s ridiculous-” I started, but Five continued in his tirade of an explanation.

“Vanya is equally worried, but she has her own problems to deal with. Dad is being harder on her than ever and I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but she’s not around us much anymore, even when we’re not on missions. She’s more alone than she’s ever been but won’t say anything about it because of Klaus’s current problems.”

“She knows that if she needs us, we’ll be there for her-”

“And that brings us to me. While you and Ben play nurse to Klaus, I’ve been dealing with everyone else’s worries and problems. I know that might sound selfish because you’re helping Klaus, and I’m not saying this to take anything away from that, but you and Ben have made this kind of wall around him. You’ve taken him on as your own case and walled him in so no-one else feels like they can help. We are a team, so that means we all pitch in and support.”

I stood there for a while after he finished speaking, stunned by his words. “Five, I’m really sorry you feel that way. Ben and I have been so busy trying to look after Klaus that I guess we’ve locked the rest of you out. I’m sorry about Diego and Vanya.”

Five stuck his hands in his pockets and rocked back on his heels. “I’m fine, I just can’t handle so many… _emotions_.”

I chuckled at this. “The Tin Man does have a heart!” I chimed, placing my hands over my heart.

Five scoffed light-heartedly at this. “Yeah, just don’t tell anyone else.”

“It’ll be our little secret,” I said with a smile, which faded before I returned to the matter at hand. “Why didn’t you tell me sooner? Why did it take until now for you to come and tell me?”

“I wasn’t intending on telling you until Klaus was in a better place. Today just made me angry and it all spilled out.”

“Yeah, today was intense right?”

“A ten-storey apartment block fire right next to a gas station? No biggie,” he brushed off.

“It was nice to be back out in the field with you guys though. I’ve missed it.”

Five’s face darkened significantly. “You shouldn’t have been there.”

“I was only helping evacuate civilians,” I replied, “it’s not like I can do much else.”

“It nearly got you killed!” Five shouted, completely changing the atmosphere of the conversation. It was like we were right back where we started at the beginning of this confrontation.

My temper once again bubbled up. “You saw the cinderblock fall before anyone else, Five! You are the one who could have come and Blinked me away in an instant, and yet it was Luther who saved me!”

Earlier that day…

_I stood in the middle of the road, directing civilians to safety. It was my one and only job for today and I assumed that there was next to no chance of something going wrong on my end of the job. I hadn’t been able to use my power since my accident over two years ago, other than lighting up a few lightbulbs. That, coupled with my inability to heal normally, meant I was side-lined. This was one of the first missions I’d been able to join since then. The only reason I’d been brought back out in the first place was because of the rumours swarming around the so-called ‘disappearance’ of Number Eight. Hargreeves couldn’t have bad press surrounding his precious academy, so that meant I had been placed back on ‘active duty’ (even if I was a glorified bench warmer)._

_The rest of the Academy were either inside the building helping get people out, putting out the fire or putting down as much sand possible at the gas station to try and extinguish any sparks that fell from the apartment building that threatened to ignite the flammable materials there._

_The fire was now under control with the help of the city’s fire department. The mission seemed to be wrapping up as Five, Luther and Ben exited the building. They all took off their oxygen masks and Ben looked a little worse for wear compared to his siblings._

_“Everybody out?” I asked them over the noise of everything going on._

_“Why do you think we left the building?” Five snapped at me. I ignored this as I had done for the past few weeks. It was like he either didn’t speak to me or when he did it was snappy or rude._

_“I’ve got this traffic controller thing down guys. I think the others still need a little help,” I continued._

_Luther nodded at me. “Let’s go,” he commanded his siblings._

_As soon as the three of them turned their backs, a cracking sound filled the air. The top floor of the apartment building suddenly disintegrated, causing a plume of black smoke and dust to fly up into the air. Debris from the red brick building started to fall to the street below._

_“Get out of the way, Isabel!” Luther yelled._

_But it was too late. I saw the slab of concrete detach from the building and head straight for me. All I could do was gasp. My feet wouldn’t move, my body was frozen. I looked in the direction of the three boys, but all I could see were Ben and Five._

_It was like having an out of body experience. I could hear myself yelling something and I knew it was an important thing to shout, but I didn’t know_ what _I was saying. I knew that, if this was the last moment of my life, I’d be yelling for someone important; someone who I thought could save me. The shadow of the slab fell over me and I knew I was done for._

_A sudden impact to my mid-section sent me flying. I then hit the ground hard and felt myself bounce a few times. One of the things I hit against was definitely the hard surface of the pavement and the other was warmer and softer. The whole world stopped for a moment and then resumed at normal speed._

_“Isabel, are you okay?” a voice said. I had clenched my eyes so tightly shut that I could feel the muscles in my face straining to keep it up. I hadn’t even realised I’d closed my eyes until I opened them._

_“Luther?” I asked, was wrapped in the taller boy’s arms. Neither of us appeared to have sustained injuries more significant than a few cuts and bruises._

_“That was a close one,” he said, disentangling himself from me._

_“I’ll say,” I replied. “Thanks for that. I really appreciate not being squished under concrete.”_

_“No problem, just be more careful next time.” He stood up and jogged away, shouting commands at other people._

_I stood up on shaky legs. My right side had got the worst of the impact, but at least it was only bruising. It’d heal (eventually). Through the dust and debris, I saw Five standing staring at me. It was like he too had been frozen when the concrete slab nearly hit me._

_Confusion turned to anger. There he was, standing when Luther, someone who couldn’t jump through space in an instant, had been the one to save me. Luther, the boy I’d barely shared more than two words within the past week, and they were likely to have been ‘pass the toast’. Five, who boasted constantly of his powers, had been struck dumb when I had needed him most._

_After a moment of intense staring, he turned his back and rushed back into the action._

“I froze, okay?” I freakin’ choked,” he replied. He had started out by shouting his words, but he ended by becoming more sombre. He ran his hands through his hair, which was a sure sign of him being stressed. He held his hands behind his head and began to pace.

“Oh, the great Five finally chokes when his power comes in useful?” I replied, raising my voice at him.

Five heard my words but he was focused on something else. The atmosphere had changed once again, but this time there was a palpable change in it, not just from the mood of our conversation. “Do you feel that?” he asked, studying the air for a thing he couldn’t see.

“Feel what?” I replied, shouting louder. Him not replying had only aggravated me further.

“Bella, stop and focus for one minute!” he replied. He reached out to grab my wrists to try and physically get me to focus.

_Zap!_

Five pulled his hands away like he’d been electrocuted. “Ah!” he grunted out, shaking his hands to move the pain away. He hadn’t just moved his hands away _like_ he’d been electrocuted, it was because he actually _had_ been electrocuted.

It was then that I felt the charge in the air. The whole argument with Five faded away as this sank in. “Five, do you know what this means?” I asked him excitedly.

He was currently nursing his hands. I could see the index finger of his left hand had gotten the worst of it and was slightly burned, so he stuck in in his mouth and sucked on it gently to ease the pain. “I think it means you’ve got your power back,” he said, his voice muffled by the finger in his mouth.

I looked at my hands gleefully as I felt electricity rush back into them. It was weak, but it was there. My power was a part of me and I’d never get rid of it, so I had learned to embrace it. I looked at Five who was still sucking on his finger. “I’m sorry about that, Five,” I apologised, electricity receding back into nothingness in my hands.

He took his finger out of his mouth with a faint ‘pop’. “It’s fine, I should have known better. It was just like one of those electric shocks you get when you touch a car.”

“Only worse?”

He held up his injured finger to me thoughtfully. “What deduction do you make, Sherlock?”

I gasped playfully in response, putting my hand on my chest dramatically. “Does that make you Watson?”

“Hell no, I’d never be a doctor. Too many whiny people.”

I giggled at that. The two of us slumped against the walls of the corridor, facing one another as we sat on opposite sides. Five sighed. “Following that, I think you understand that controlling your power is a little tricky at times, right?”

“Oh totally. Electricity is so unpredictable, so I don’t think I’ll ever have complete control over my power. Not like you,” I replied.

He laughed humourlessly at that. “I wasn’t just talking about _your_ power, Bella. I’m talking about _mine_.”

I sat up straighter at this, indicating that I was paying more attention to what he was saying. “But you’ve always been so in control of it. You’ve basically mastered spatial manipulation.”

The corner of his mouth twitched upwards a little at that. “Yeah, I thought the same. Until today,” he said, the full weight of his stunning blue gaze on me. His eyes were so intense that it felt like there was a physical weight pressing on me.

“What happened today?” I asked, prompting him to continue.

“I think you know.”

“Elaborate for me. I am but a simpleton.”

“I mean, true,” he shot back, causing me to giggle.

“You’re not supposed to agree with me!” I exclaimed.

“You make it too easy,” he replied, a wistful edge to his voice and a smile on his face that emphasised the dimple in his left cheek. His eyes had not once left me. “But let me elaborate.” He straightened his uniform before clearing his throat and speaking. “When I saw you standing there, about to be crushed, I…I _froze_. It was like I couldn’t move. I couldn’t even Blink. All those years of training and conditioning and pushing the boundaries of even time travel…and then there’s something simple presented to me. Save you. Blink in and get you out. And I couldn’t. I couldn’t even breathe until I saw that big oaf swoop in and save you. It was supposed to be me that could save people in that situation. And I failed.”

I failed _you_ , was how I heard that final sentence. From the look he was giving me, I knew that although the word hadn’t been spoken aloud, he had said it non-verbally. He was admitting that he had failed _me_.

I shuffled across the corridor so that I was sitting by his side, our arms pressed lightly together. His hands were joined together but while he had been speaking he hadn’t stopped fidgeting with them. His fingers continued to twitch in his hands wildly.

I placed my head on his shoulder. He tensed for a moment but then quickly relaxed. It was subtle, but I felt him turn his head so that his cheek was pressed gently against my head. Five wasn’t the biggest fan of physical contact and I respected that, but right now I didn’t know how else to convey my emotions to him except through touch.

“Is that why you were so mad when we got back?” I asked him softly.

His chest rose and fell beside mine. It was weird sitting like this with him. Where Klaus and Ben were very physically expressive, Five wasn’t, which made every motion he made more noticeable and meaningful. “It was about ninety percent of it. I was angry with myself for not being able to save you, I was angry at Dad for letting you out into the mission field when he knows you shouldn’t be there, and I was angry at Klaus. I know I shouldn’t be and I’ll do what I can to help him, but if it weren’t for him I wouldn’t have been annoyed at you for not spending time with me.”

“Aw, are you a little jealous?” I asked him playfully.

“This isn’t funny, Izzie!” Five retorted irritably, shifting away from me.

I sat still for a moment to gather my thoughts and navigate the next part of this conversation. “I’m-I’m sorry, Five. Humour is kind of my self defence mechanism. I laugh in situations that really aren’t funny, you _know_ this. I can’t help it,” I replied calmly, not wanting to aggravate him further.

Five let out a heavy breath. “I know, I know. It’s just-sometimes, I think you’re not taking what I say seriously.” His hands ran through his hair again and once they’d settled back in his lap, he continued to fidget with his fingers.

“Hey,” I said with a soft smile. I shifted so that I was facing his side and then reached out and grabbed one of his hands in mine. His eyes shot up to mine. His hand was warm and a little clammy if I had to admit, but then again mine was cold and clammy, which was probably much worse. His fingers ceased in their endless fidgeting. “I’m sorry that I make you feel that I don’t take you seriously. And I’m sorry I’ve been neglecting my other relationships in this house. Everything with Klaus has been a little overwhelming, and honestly Five? I’m scared for him. I’m scared that what your dad is doing to him is going to hurt him, or that he’ll end up hurting himself.”

Five looked down at our joined hands and squeezed mine lightly. “I didn’t want to make you feel guilty about it. I still don’t.”

“But it all exploded out of you after today.”

“Yeah, I guess it did. And maybe…maybe I was…” he trailed off. He was still looking down at our hands.

 _A little jealous_ , I finished in my head. I squeezed his hand. “I know,” I finished as our eyes locked. “Just know that if Luther hadn’t been there to get me out of the way, I wouldn’t have blamed you. I guess I had to be reminded that just because we have powers doesn’t mean that we know everything about them, or control them. Sometimes they don’t work.”

“And sometimes,” he said, letting go of my hand. With his, he opened my hand until the palm was flat. “It comes back,” he finished, dragging his fingers lightly over my hand.

I giggled at the sensation. “That tickles,” I said.

He rolled his eyes at me teasingly. “You always were the most ticklish out of all of us.”

“My one supreme weakness,” I bantered back. I placed a hand on his shoulder. “I’ve missed you. I think this is the first time in weeks that I haven’t been worried about Klaus or thinking about how worried I am about him.”

“Do you think she’s still as ticklish as she was when we were kids, Five?”

The two of us looked up from our places on the floor to see Diego standing there at the end of the corridor, a mischievous smile on his face. I didn’t know how much of our conversation that he’d heard, but I didn’t care. I looked back at Five who had cottoned on to what Diego was suggesting. There was a wicked glint in his eyes and I knew were this was going.

I looked between the two of them meekly as Diego started to menacingly approach me. “Ten second head start?” I bargained.

“We’ll give you fifteen, just because we’re nice,” Five replied, grinning cunningly.

Off I sprinted to hide from the two of them. There would be no tickling me today if I had any say in it. Needless to say, they found me and tickled me relentlessly until Hargreeves found us tangled on the floor outside of the library, shouting at us to clean ourselves up after the mission.

The rollicking we got from him was worth it though; I couldn’t remember the last time I’d laughed so much. As I was scrubbing off the dust that had found its home in my hairline in the shower, two things occurred to me. The first was that Five had mentioned something about time travel, and I made a note of that to talk to him about it. The second was what I’d been shouting out when the concrete had been hurtling towards me earlier.

I hadn’t called out for Grace or Pogo or Hargreeves. It hadn’t been my siblings or even my own parents.

I’d been calling for Five.

* * *

A/N: So here is chapter five! I feel like it was quite choppy at the beginning and I apologise for that, but I really enjoyed writing the last half of the chapter. Writing the characters is so much fun! I’d have to say I really like writing Klaus and Five.

Thank you to everyone who had been supporting this story. I can’t believe how well its been received and that people are out there enjoying this! Thank you all for reading this story, leaving kudos, subscribing/bookmarking, all that jazz! And a big thanks to everyone leaving comments too, they make me smile so much to see you guys are engaging with this story and are enjoying what I write. All of these things make me more inspired to write and get these chapters out to you all, so thank you all for keeping me motivated.

Thank you to dany89 for your encouraging comment on this work, I really appreciate you and how well you write. You are awesome!

Another thank you to Xxx_Daily_Tears_xxX! This is another shout out to you!! Thank you for all of your support, your comment was a big part of getting this next chapter out. It was so lovely to read and made me so happy!!

Song list:

Chapter title: ‘Those Nights’ by Bastille.

‘Holly Jolly Christmas’ by Michael Bublé.

‘The Name Game’ from American Horror Story.

‘We Don’t Talk Anymore’ by Charlie Puth.

‘Broken Strings’ by James Morrison ft. Nelly Furtado.

Thanks again for all of your support guys. I know it might sound like I’m harping on about how thankful I am for it, but honestly I can’t stop thanking you all for how supported I have felt since publishing this story. You guys are amazing!

Stay safe! Love,

SunnySci. :)).


	6. Long Is The Road

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Questions are asked, paintings painted, hands are held.

Chapter Six: Long Is The Road.

* * *

_The third of April, 2005: ‘Til the day brings us light._

The past few days had been quiet. We were all still on edge about Klaus, but he had been doing better…ish. That was mainly due to the fact his dad had caught him stealing liquor and so all the alcohol that had been in the house was now under an even heavier lock and key. However, when he was drunk, at least he had slept soundly through the night. As he become increasingly sober his powers were more prominent, and he was starting to lose control over them.

During the day he could keep the dead at bay, but at night he was weaker. He was weakest when he slept as the dead had fewer barriers to cross in order to talk to him and manifest themselves. This meant restless nights and a very tired Klaus come daybreak. In short, with or without alcohol, he was starting to lose it unless he found a way to control his new surge in power.

Luther and Allison were tag-teaming on Klaus duty right now and had taken him on a walk to the park. I hadn’t seen Five since yesterday and Diego was with Grace making cookies for our snack later. Ben and I were laid back on a picnic blanket reading on the roof; he was reading a comic and I was reading ‘The Magician’s Nephew.’ I had just gotten to the part where Polly and Digory had just been transported to the Wood between the Worlds. Growing up with Five meant that spatial transport wasn’t a foreign concept to me, but it was fun to see it in real life and in fiction.

“How are you feeling?” Ben asked me out of the blue. He had rolled onto his side to face me and used his arm to prop up his head.

“I mean, there’s still a bit of a chill in the air,” I replied, wrapping the blanket that was covering me more tightly around myself.

Ben chuckled. “I didn’t mean the weather, Iz. I meant Klaus. How are you dealing with all of this?”

It was the first time either of us had directly asked the other about him. “As well as one could hope, I guess,” I replied, fiddling with the edges of my book. “You?”

“The same. It’s not easy watching someone you love go through something like this,” he answered. The wind picked up and blew strands of hair in my face. He gently reached out and pushed them behind my ear. This felt like a scene that had been lifted straight out of one of Allison’s sappy romance novels and honestly, I kind of liked it. His hand lingered on my cheek as he pushed back my hair and the warmth of his hand made my whole body heat up.

Sweet, innocent Ben. He loved his siblings and he looked out for all of us. He had one of the biggest hearts of anyone I knew (which, admittedly, wasn’t many) and he was too empathetic for his own good. My feelings for him had grown over the years and it was moments like these that compounded those feelings.

So, the question was, why did the way he looked at me make me feel so uneasy?

I pulled away from him with a sigh and saw his face fall. I had feelings for him, right? So _why_ did I feel this way? He looked at me with such…innocence and _emotion_ that it made a pit form in my stomach.

“I should go and help Diego,” I said, standing up, “I’m sure he and Grace could do with an extra set of hands in the kitchen,” I continued, gathering my book and blanket in my arms.

Ben’s face fell. “Sure,” he replied. He gave me a smile, but I could tell it was forced. I nodded at him and returned the tight smile as I left the roof.

I had feelings for Ben…but I was scared of them changing our relationship. Was it that I didn’t want to pursue things past what we currently had? Or, and this was a thought that boggled my brain, was it because he was a little too innocent and emotional for me?

Ben was perfect. But maybe…maybe he wasn’t perfect for me.

I didn’t go to the kitchen like I had told Ben. Instead, I bolted to my room and locked the door. Luther and Allison had returned with Klaus in tow and I could hear the three of them chatting away in Klaus’s bedroom.

I tried to read my book, but my mind was elsewhere. How could I have feelings for Ben, romantic ones at that, and yet not want something more? It wasn’t like I could talk to Klaus about it seeing as Ben was his closest sibling. If I went to Diego, he would listen awkwardly and provide some wooden advice and Five…well, I couldn’t find him right now and there was the added fact that I didn’t want to talk to him about it.

Or rather, I didn’t feel like I could. Today was weirdly emotionally charged and I didn’t like it.

 _Whoosh_.

Blue light filled my room accompanied by a thrumming noise. Unlike his usual composed fashion, Five tumbled out of the portal and fell onto my bedroom floor without an ounce of grace.

I sat up from my bed. “Five? What are you doing here? Where have you been, I haven’t been able to-”

“Shush!” he harshly hissed out. He grabbed his head and stumbled to his feet. “Everything’s spinning.”

His legs buckled beneath him and I barely managed to reach him in time before he hit the floor again. “I’ve got you,” I reassured him, swinging his arm over my shoulder. I managed to lay him on my bed. “What’s going on?”

“Trash can,” he choked out, pointing to the white bin beside my desk. I snatched it up and brought it to him. He lay on his side, brought his head over the edge of my bed to place his face over the bin and promptly vomited into it. I scrunched my nose up in slight disgust before he grabbed the bin and took it from my grip. I didn’t know what to do except sit on the bed beside him and rub his back like I had seen Grace do for Diego when he had a stomach flu a few months ago.

“Ugh,” Five groaned, placing the bin on the floor and lying back on my bed, breathing heavily and sweating profusely. He closed his eyes tightly, probably to stop the dizziness he was feeling.

I picked up the bin and rushed to the bathroom. I poured the contents of it down the toilet and thanked Grace that she had emptied it this afternoon. I washed it out quickly with hot water and soap and left it to steep in the bathtub as my attention returned to Five.

I grabbed a wet cloth before leaving the bathroom and locked my bedroom door behind me. I opened the window above my bed to let in a cool breeze before I sat down beside Five again and dabbed at his forehead.

“You would make…a terrible nurse,” he ground out.

I moved the cloth away from his forehead. “Maybe don’t say that to the person taking caring of you,” I commented. I had no intentions of ever entering the healthcare sector and therefore his remark didn’t really bother me.

Five moaned and grabbed my hand that held the cloth and slapped it to his forehead. “I didn’t say stop,” he replied. His breathing was evening out and he had opened his eyes slightly, which was hopefully a sign that he was feeling better. His face was still ashen, but it wasn’t as grey as it had been.

I nursed him for a few more minutes in silence before I saw more colour return to his face. “Are you gonna tell me what happened?” I asked him, refolding the washcloth so that the cooler parts were now of his forehead.

He merely reached out to grab the glass of water that had been sitting on my bedside table. Like most of my furniture, it was a matte white that stood out against the pastel green that my walls had been painted.

He downed the contents of it. “I…time travelled,” he said in a raspy voice.

My whole body froze. Did he really just say _time travel_? “Wait, so that’s why you’ve been gone since yesterday?”

Five nodded and set down the glass in his hand on the table with a ‘clink’. “I’ve done it before and both times it’s happened, things have been equally unpredictable. I didn’t know when I’d show up again.”

I took the cloth away from his head despite his protests. “Wait, so you _actually_ time travelled? And it was pure luck that you’ve come back to this time frame both times?”

Five nodded. “Both times equally as rough on the body.”

“What happened the last time?”

“I ended up travelling back a few hours a month ago. The jump was so small that no-one even noticed I had done it.”

I sat back and glared down at him. Time travel was dangerous, and we’d all been well-warned about how tricky it could be by Sir any time Five had brought it up in conversation. “Five, I don’t think you understand how lucky you are to not have been spirited away to another point in time. You could have ended up back with the Ancient Egyptians! Or…I don’t know, in the fifteen-hundreds and died from the Black Plague!” I said crossly.

“Believe me, I know. I would make an excellent Pharaoh,” he replied with a smirk.

I threw the cloth at him. “This isn’t funny, Five!”

He instantly sobered up. “I know.”

“Then why make jokes about it?”

Five sat up and fixed me with a judgemental stare. “Says the girl who uses humour as a coping mechanism. We had a conversation similar to this not too long ago if you remember, Bella.”

I deflated slightly at this. I pulled my legs up onto the bed so that I was sitting cross legged in front of him, our knees bumping together lightly. “Sorry, you’re right,” I let out a frustrated sigh, “but Five, time travel? Seriously? This is the path you wanna go down?”

He nodded. “I’ve always thought that I could do it and this is just the start of it. Of course, I’ll need to practice so I don’t end up in the wrong time frame but-”

“Five, you do realise how crazy you sound, right?” I interrupted, “this isn’t something you should be playing around with, we know how dangerous messing with time can be. How is this not scaring you?”

“It does scare me, but it also excites me,” he replied, fiddling with his fingers, “I mean, could you imagine what I could do with this? I could change so many things!”

I looked at him hesitantly, worry filling my eyes. “That’s what I’m afraid of, Five. I don’t think history can or should be changed.”

Five’s face darkly clouded over. “I wouldn’t expect you to understand.”

“I do understand, Five!” I exclaimed, my body shifting closer to his in response. “Should you go back and try and stop wars from happening? The answer on paper is yes. But what will you end up changing in the process? What if you change one bad thing and something even worse happens?”

“Then I’ll stop that from happening too,” he replied stubbornly.

I sighed exasperatedly. “Five, come on. We’ve seen the movies with time travel and it never goes well. Look at Doctor Who; even he has a strict set of rules about interfering with historical events because he knows what’ll happen if he does.”

Five stood up from the bed and wobbled dangerously on his feet. “This is real life, Izzie. I _know_ I can time travel!”

“Just because you can, doesn’t mean you should!” I shouted at him from where I sat on the bed. “And look at what it’s doing to you, you can’t even stand up straight. You’re playing with fire, Five, and I think you are too obstinate to admit that you know that.”

There was a knock on my door. “Izzie, Five? Is everything okay in there?”

Five shakily sat back on my bed as the tight atmosphere of the room dissipated slightly. “Yeah, we’re fine Klaus!” I replied.

“Okay, good. If you guys are done arguing, we’re repainting my room if you want to join,” Klaus continued, his voice muffled by the door.

“Sounds like fun, I’ll be there in a minute,” I replied hurriedly in an attempt to get him to go away. I turned to Five and was now grateful for the interruption. Arguments between the two of us could get pretty heated and didn’t achieve much until we had had time to cool off. This was a textbook example of one of those times.

Five ran his hands through his hair. “I hate to admit it, but I think we both have valid points here.”

I scoffed at this before realising how arrogant it had made me sound. I shrugged my shoulders prior to replying. “You have a power you want to test out, I get that. You’ve always been the one of us who’s been the most willing to test the boundaries of their abilities. But I can’t help but be scared for you, Five. Time travel makes you sick, you have _no_ _control_ over it!”

“But I could, if I practiced,” he persisted

I barely held in a frustrated sigh as we seemed to come in a full circle back to where we’d started arguing. “I get that, but I’m thinking about what happens if it goes wrong. What if you get stuck in the wrong time and can’t get back? Is learning to time travel more important than staying with your siblings?”

He paused for a moment and leaned towards me, his blue gaze entombing me where I sat. “Why do you never include yourself when you talk about us?” Five questioned, completely turning the conversation on its head. “You may not share our last name, but you’re a part of this family.”

“Way to change to the conversation,” I said, playing with a loose thread in my grey duvet cover. “I guess it’s because I have a family outside of here. I’ll always be the outsider because of that, and I don’t feel like I have the right to call you guys my family. It’s more like you’re my friends instead.”

There was another beat of silence as he swallowed heavily. “I only say that because you make it sound like you’re not a reason I would take into account not to time travel,” he replied. His eyes caught mine in a look that simply stunned me and made time slow down. His words, the look he was giving me…they confused me. What was he trying to say?

I lay back on my bed and turned to the side, tucking my arms in close to my body. Five mimicked my actions and we faced each other. “Well if I asked you to, would you stay? Would you not time travel if I asked you to?” I asked him in a low voice, trying to see what he was getting at.

He swallowed heavily again. I could almost see the cogs whirring around inside his head as he tried to come up with an answer. A gust of wind blew through the window above my bed powerfully, making a stray curl land on my cheek. Mirroring what Ben had done mere hours ago, he tucked the piece of hair behind my ear. Unlike with Ben, I felt my heart speed up and, ironically considering my power, I felt sparks from his touch. I could barely breathe as he studied my face intently, the sea-blue eyes ensnaring me as his thumb brushed lightly over my cheekbone.

What was going on? And…why was he looking at my lips?

_Bang!_

Something heavy clattered against my door. I shot up in surprise, breaking out of the trance I’d been in.

“Come on you two, grab a paintbrush and let’s go!” I heard Diego announce from the other side of the door.

I looked to Five, but he was already on his feet and straightening out his uniform. “We should see what the idiots want,” he said, his facial expression obscured to me as I looked at him from the back.

“Yeah-yeah, we should,” I managed to stutter out. I was nothing but confused over what had just happened between Five and I. Why did I feel such sparks from a simple touch? Why was I suddenly feeling things that I had never done before?

He Blinked away before I could even move. I went and unlocked my door to see him materialise in Klaus’s room, and he didn’t spare me as much as a look as I made my way over to the room. I picked up a large paintbrush that lay on the floor by my door and figured that had been the cause of the loud noise.

Luther, Allison and Klaus all held paintbrushes in their hands. Klaus was wearing a button up shirt that wasn’t buttoned up and had drawn a smiley face in neon orange paint across his chest. “Izzie! We decided that my room could do with a little cheering up, so we’re going to make it super cosy and colourful,” he said, twirling the paintbrush in between his fingers. Orange paint splattered all over his white button up.

Allison and Luther were currently hanging up a set of fairy lights. “We’ve got this, you guys work away,” said Allison.

On the floor were a set of canvases. “Pick a canvas and go wild,” Klaus purred, sticking the paintbrush handle in his mouth like he was smoking one of those vintage cigarettes.

“Okay,” I said, going along with whatever this was. Diego was already hard at work on his masterpiece. His eyebrows were bunched together in concentration and I could see the tip of his tongue poking out of the side of his mouth. “You know I suck at art, right?” I turned to Klaus.

“Shush,” Klaus said, putting a finger over my lips, “just let the creativity move through you and see what happens,” he explained, gyrating his body smoothly as he spoke.

I grabbed a canvas and sat down on the floor by Diego. I watched Five out of the corner of my eyes also grabbing a canvas and some paints, but he remained quiet as he worked. Luther had turned up the volume on his record player in his room and we painted to the sound of the songs drifting down the corridor. Luther bopped along to the beat which made Allison laugh, whereas Klaus floated around the room and stopped occasionally to paint.

“Hey, what’s going on?”

Vanya stood in the hallway, holding her beloved violin. Klaus went over and embraced her. “Sister dear! Pick up a canvas and make some art for my room!” So, she did. She settled down beside Five and the two of them worked quietly on their paintings.

Several Eighties albums later and we were done. Diego had painted our domino mask on the portrait along with symbols that represented each of us, I had gone crazy with the neon paints and had done an ‘abstract’ pattern painting, Vanya had painted a violin and Five painted the planets of solar system, with Saturn’s rings represented by sequins. Ben had painted a cartoon octopus and Klaus had painted a sunset (which was smothered in glitter. It looked like a unicorn had thrown up on it). Allison had painted a scene of a film premiere and Luther had painted a picture of the night sky.

We were interrupted by Grace calling us for dinner, but once we’d finished the paintings were dry. Diego picked up a few nails and threw them into Klaus’s walls for us to pin them on (yet another great example of how powers make life easier). The eight of us stood back to admire our works as the sun started to disappear from the night sky and our paintings were illuminated by the fairy lights and setting sun.

“Your creativity astounds me,” Klaus declared to us all.

“This was really fun,” Vanya quietly added.

“Before you go, you _have_ to sign your names under your paintings,” Klaus insisted, popping the cap off a black sharpie. And so, we did as he asked. Ben was the last to sign his name as Klaus only had one marker.

“It’s such a nice, clear night,” Allison remarked, “why don’t we go up to the roof?”

“I’ll grab some blankets,” Five said.

“I’ll help,” Vanya offered.

That was how we ended up on the roof, huddled up in blankets as we stared up into space with paint splattered across our skin. We didn’t really talk, but it was nice to spend time in silence with each other. A set of high heels clicked across the roof.

“Children, I have brought your bedtime snacks!” Grace announced cheerily, her arms supporting a tray filled with chocolate chip cookies and a large jug of milk with glasses beside it.

“Let me help you with that, Mom,” Diego jumped up to assist her.

“Thank you, Diego dear,” Grace said, placing the tray on the ground. “Your father says that you’re all to be in bed in ten minutes. He’s hoped you’ve enjoyed a quieter day today.” It said a lot when even Reginald Hargreeves saw that we had reached our limit. The past few weeks had been crazily busy with missions to the point where we would start to make big mistakes because of sheer exhaustion.

Grace poured milk into glasses and Diego passed out the cookies. “Thank you, Grace,” I said as she handed me my milk.

“You are very welcome, Izzie,” she replied with a smile. Hearing the other children call her ‘Mom’ all the time reminded me that she wasn’t my mum and that I had one, a _real_ mum; only she was thousands of miles away. Grace had never once asked me to call her ‘Mum’ despite the fact I knew her better than my own mother. “Oh, and here are your night-time meds.”

She pulled out a small clear plastic cup filled with an assortment of pills. These were the medicines Hargreeves had prescribed me to take day and night to try and get my body aging again, but to no avail yet. I was still stuck in the body of a thirteen-year-old while the others were in bodies of fifteen-year olds. It wasn’t much of a difference now, but it would become much more apparent as time marched on.

I poured half of the pills into my hand and popped them in my mouth, washing them down with milk. I did the same to the other half as Diego handed me a cookie which helped push down the pills. “Thanks, Grace.” I said.

“No problem,” she said cheerily, moving to give Ben, who was beside me, his milk.

“So, everyone, what was the highlight of you day?” Klaus asked.

There was a collective groan to this. “We haven’t done that since we were little kids,” Ben said brightly, being the only one of us who hadn’t protested at the suggestion. “I’ll start. I liked painting my octopus. How about you, Allison?”

With a reluctant sigh she spoke. “I liked…spending time with Klaus and Luther in the park,” she replied, “how about you, Vanya?”

Vanya was on the other side of me and I saw her fingers twitch nervously. “I liked getting to spend a lot of time with you guys today. I haven’t been able to do that in a while,” she admitted. I could hear the loneliness in her voice. “Luther?”

“Same as Allison,” I rolled my eyes at this, “we saw some cute dogs on our walk.”

“Ooo, what kind?” Ben piped up.

“There was the cutest little French bulldog,” Allison replied.

“I liked the German Shepherd,” Luther added.

“I liked the labradoodle with three legs,” Klaus continued, “anyway Luther, pass it on to someone else.”

“Okay, uh, Izzie,” Luther said.

I shuffled slightly under my blanket as I thought. “The same as Vanya. It was nice to do something normal with each other. And-”

“You can’t have two, that’s against the rules,” Klaus protested.

“-knowing that people would stay for me.” To the others this was a slightly cryptic message, but I knew that Five understood. I turned to look at him. “How about you, Five?”

I looked over to where he lay on the other side of Vanya and saw his chest rise and fall heavily. “Painting. Diego?” he stated quickly.

It was a short answer, but then again, Five wasn’t really one for words. I knew he had heard what I said and understood the message by the way he briefly caught my eye and quirked his eyebrow at me. I lay back to look up at the sky after that, enjoying the unobstructed view of the sky. 

“Baking cookies with Mom,” Diego answered. “Klaus, finish us off.”

“It’s just been such a great day with you all. I got to walk in the park, I got to decorate my room, and Diego baked me cookies!”

“They aren’t just for you, asshole,” Diego droned.

“Alright children, it’s time for bed!” Grace said with a clap of her hands. We folded the blankets neatly and Five and Vanya took responsibility for putting them back where they came from. Grace lifted the empty tray and disappeared downstairs and we followed her.

All eight of us found ourselves in the large, communal bathroom. While it didn’t have a toilet, it housed multiple sinks with mirrors over each of them for several of us to use at the same time, but with all of us gathered there it was incredibly crowded. Some of us were in pyjamas and others, like me, were trying to wash dried-in paint off our skin. This led to some small spats over who got to use the sink and when, with some of us using it for remove paint and the others needing it to brush our teeth. I was currently scrubbing off a long line of neon pink paint from my face that Klaus had been the artist of. Even after all the scrubbing there was still a faint pinkness to my skin.

Klaus had found the hair ties we girls used for our hair under the sink when the tube of toothpaste we’d been using ran out. One moment I was brushing my teeth and the next Klaus and Ben were pinging black elastic hair ties at me and Diego.

“Les ge’ ‘em,” I said to Diego, my mouth full of toothpaste foam. Having Diego on my team was a major advantage as Ben and Klaus got hit in the face every time he launched an elastic at them. My aim was much less accurate and the others got caught in the crossfire.

I took off the hair tie around my wrist when we ran out of ammo. This was nothing special, it was just a small green scrunchie, but when I tried to ping it at Klaus it ended up hitting Five in the nose, who had just finished brushing his teeth.

I held my hands up in surrender as he turned to me with a slightly murderous look on his face, but his eyes twinkled with good humour. He picked up the scrunchie and placed it on his wrist. “You’ll get this back when you learn to behave,” he said, pointing at me.

“Yes sir,” I replied, saluting him mockingly.

“Children! Hurry and get to bed, it is past your bedtime!” Hargreeves bellowed at us. I saw him look at the mass of hair ties on the bathroom floor. “And clean this up before you leave!”

The rest of that night passed in silence. We didn’t speak after Hargreeves stayed to watch us finish up in the bathroom and clean up the hair elastics. Still, it had been a day to remember.

* * *

_The fourth of April, 2005: Could you tell me, where’d you get the nerve?_

The normal daily routine had been re-established following our day off yesterday. Breakfast was followed by morning studies, which was followed by lunch. Five had his one-on-one training time with Hargreeves while we studied.

The lunch bell went. As usual, we all hurried down the stairs to the dining room (which doubled as the living room). Nothing was amiss except for the lateness of Hargreeves. The seven of us all looked at each other in confusion; this rarely happened, and we couldn’t sit until Hargreeves was sitting. Five was also missing.

“Maybe his training ran over,” said Luther.

Five minutes went by until we heard footsteps in the distance. In Hargreeves’ terms, being five minutes late was cause for major concern. He had it drilled into us that punctuality was key to a functioning society, so for him to be this late…something was wrong. That thought was only compounded when Five came into view.

His shoulders were squared, and he stalked towards us. We parted like the Red Sea to let him pass us. I could feel anger and frustration rolling in waves off him as he took his place behind his normal seat at the table. Sir entered the dining room and stood behind his chair, the air about him completely juxtaposing that of Five’s as he appeared calm, cool and collected in contrast to Five’s anger.

We filed in slowly, careful to make no sudden moves in case it set off Five. He was the one with the most fearsome temper of us all, and none of us liked being on the receiving end of it. Grace had placed a record on the player and a commentary about mountaineering was playing in the background. Something about the ‘Dülfersitz rappel’ and how it should be regarded as the last resort or something like that. Hargreeves pulled out his chair and stood in front of it. “Sit,” he commanded sharply.

The light scraping of chair legs against tiles echoed through the room. As we ate in silence apart from the noise the record player made, I took in the mood of the room. Diego was all but inhaling his food, Allison and Luther were making eyes at each other from across the table, Ben was reading a book and Vanya was eating politely. Klaus was doing God-knows-what with something under the table and out of the view of his adoptive dad. He had been up early that morning and when his bedroom door had been open, a weird smell wafted out of it.

I slowly chewed bites of food as I observed Five, who was looking at his father and playing with a table knife in his right hand. He hadn’t paid the slightest attention to his food and Vanya, who was sat beside me, had focused her attention on her brother rather than her food. Hargreeves looked directly at Five and took a sip from his glass, which only served to agitate him more. In the blink of an eye, Five stabbed the table with the knife and all activity around the table ceased. All eyes were on him.

“Number Five?” Hargreeves asked, returning his attention to his lunch.

“I have a question,” Five asked coolly, anger simmering beneath his words. 

“Knowledge is an admirable goal, but you know the rules. No talking during mealtimes, you are interrupting Herr Carlson,” he answered, his silverware clinking off his plate.

Five pushed his plate of food away, the china grinding harshly against the table’s surface. “I want to time travel.”

My blood ran cold at his words. After our conversation yesterday, I had thought that some of what I said had gotten through to him. Maybe it had, but his temper was legendary and overrode every other system in him when he was angry. Clearly this had been what was bothering him before lunch and explained why he and Hargreeves had been late.

“No,” Hargreeves shot him down.

“But I’m ready,” Five replied in a steely voice, pushing his chair away from the table and standing up, “I’ve been practicing my spatial jumps, just like you said.” There was a thrumming _whoosh_ and he was gone. Another _whoosh_ and he reappeared right beside his adoptive father.

Vanya and I shared a concerned look with each other. I didn’t know if he had divulged to her his desire to time travel before today, but the two of us were equally worried about what was happening right now.

Hargreeves didn’t pay his son any attention and remained focused on his food. “A spatial jump is trivial when compared to the unknowns of time travel,” he stated, holding up his wine glass, “one is like sliding along the ice, the other is akin to descending blindly into the depths of the freezing water and reappearing as an acorn.” He then took a lengthy drink of his wine.

Five tilted his head to the side. This indicated to me that he was trying to reign in his temper. “I don’t get it,” he replied lowly, tucking his hands into the pockets of his shorts.

“Hence, the reason you’re not ready.”

Five looked in the direction of Vanya and me. Both of us shook our heads adamantly at him, trying to get him to stop pressing the subject. Instead, he turned back to Hargreeves. “I’m not afraid.”

Once again, my blood ran cold. He might not have been afraid of time travel, but I was afraid for him. I reached for Vanya’s hand to try and ground myself and ground my fear. I’m sure it wasn’t pleasant for her considering how hard I was squeezing it.

“Fear isn’t the issue. The effects it might have on your body, even on your mind, are far too unpredictable,” Hargreeves rattled off quickly, trying to put a lid on the conversation. He placed another bite of food in his mouth, but I noticed that as this conversation had continued, he cut into his food more aggressively. He all but threw down his silverware. “Now, I forbid you to talk about this anymore.”

Hargreeves returned his attention to his lunch. Five pursed his lips together and made a straight face before turning his back on his father and walking away. “Number Five!” Hargreeves shouted after him before he broke into a run. “You haven’t been excused!”

“Come on,” I whispered harshly to Vanya, pulling her up and out of her seat before she had the chance to protest. There was a sinking feeling in my stomach like I knew what was about to happen, and the dread bubble up inside me.

“Number Seven! Number Eight! Get back here!” he shouted at us as we followed Five’s tracks.

The front door of the house had just closed. We saw Five open the gates and burst out onto the street and we followed after him quickly. I had let go of Vanya’s hand when we opened the front door and feared for a second that she would run back into the dining room, but she stayed by my side.

“Five!” I shouted after his retreating form.

“What now?!” he yelled back testily. When he saw it was Vanya and me, he calmed down a little and we approached each other.

“Five, whatever you’re thinking of doing, don’t,” I babbled out, fear coursing through me and causing me to talk rapidly.

“She’s right, Five. You heard what Dad said, time travel will mess you up,” Vanya said in her mouse-like voice.

Five scoffed at us and threw his hands up in the air animatedly. “He said it was unpredictable! I could end up being fine!”

“Or you might not!” I shot back, fear turning into anger.

“He said it was _unpredictable_. No-one has ever tried to time travel before,” Vanya continued.

“Which will make me a pioneer,” Five replied, emphasising the ‘me’ by pointing both thumbs at himself.

“Oh, stop with the pioneer bullshit, Five. You just want to prove your dad wrong now that he’s told you not to do it,” I said, folding my arms.

“So what?” Five replied irritably.

“So what?” I said, taken aback. “So _what_? Five, you heard what he said! Time travel could mess up your body, your brain, or maybe even both. Do you really want to risk it? And what if something else goes wrong and you can’t make it back to us?”

Five deflated slightly, his anger leaving him. He still had a determined posture though and that made me worried. “I know the risks. I’m not afraid,” he said, holding up his chin confidently.

“You may not be afraid, but we are!” Vanya chimed in.

Five paused at his sister’s plea. His determined look faltered for a second as he looked at Vanya. “I have to try,” he said, running his hands through his hair. I saw he still wore my green scrunchie on his wrist that he’d taken hostage the previous night.

“Five,” I said, rushing towards him until the gap between our bodies was virtually non-existent. He looked down at me with a soft look in his eyes while mine blazed into his. I placed my hand on his cheek to stop him from looking away from me and to ground myself to him as I swept my thumb across his sharp, defined cheekbone. His eyes filled with an emotion that I couldn’t comprehend at the gesture. “You said yesterday that I was a reason that you would stay here. I asked you that, if I asked, would you stay?”

“I remember,” he said lowly, shifting himself closer to my body and dipping his head towards mine. I could feel the buttons of his shirt pressing into me through his sweater. He was so close that his scent overwhelmed my senses: a mixture of sandalwood and musk and something that was just utterly Five. 

“Well,” I started, reaching out with my free hand to hold one of his. My index finger stroked along the skin of his wrist that was in front of my scrunchie and I could’ve sworn he shivered slightly. I looked into his eyes earnestly, begging for him to listen to me. “This is me asking you to stay. Forget about time travel and stay here with us. With _me_ ,” I pleaded, gently squeezing his hand and lightly tightening my grip on his cheek. He looked straight into my eyes and squeezed my hand back. He leant down so that his forehead rested lightly against mine, strands of his hair tickling my skin.

“I’m sorry.”

His hands left mine and he whirled away, turning his back on both Vanya and me as he marched forwards determinedly.

“Five!” Vanya and I yelled, but it was too late. Everything went into slow motion when I reached out to stop him, but he slipped through my grasp. Vanya also moved forwards to grab him, however it was too late.

There was a flash of blue, and he was gone.

And a piece of my heart simply _shattered_.

* * *

A/N: So……………….we all knew it was coming lmao. I was tempted to let Izzie go with Five, but decided against it because ~ heartbreak ~. Thanks to everyone who has left a comment/kudos or bookmarked/subscribed to this story, it honestly means more than you’ll ever know. I’ve been feeling a little unmotivated to write recently and that has a lot to do with potentially testing positive for Covid-19 and life just being busy for me.

A question I have for you guys is: who is your favourite couple to ship from the Umbrella Academy? Lemme know if you want to! I love hearing from you guys.

Also, just wondering but would anyone like me to ‘cast’ an actor for Izzie? Just in case you were wondering what she potentially looks like. Lemme know!

Thank you to dany89 and welp.I.tried for reviewing. It means a lot to me! And welp.i.tried your reaction to posting your comment twice was hilarious! It really warmed my heart.

Please stay safe everyone. Hug your loved ones and wear a dang mask!

Chapter songs:

Chapter title: Lyrics from ‘Cold Is The Night’ by The Oh Hellos.

‘Til the Day Brings Us Light’ are lyrics from ‘Speechless’ by Morning Parade.

‘Could you tell me, where’d you get the nerve?’ are lyrics from ‘you broke me first’ by Tate McRae (thank u TikTok).

A much shorter song list because of much fewer chapter breaks/titles needed in this chapter. I also listened to ‘One Day’ from the ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ soundtrack while writing the last part of this chapter and I think it summarises Five and Izzie’s relationship well. I’d call it their ‘theme’, if that’s not too cheesy.

All my love,

SunnySci :)).


	7. No Tears Left To Cry

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Five's gone, and life moves on.

Chapter Seven: No Tears Left To Cry.

* * *

_The fifth of March, 2005: Now you’re gone._

_There was a flash of blue, and he was gone._

That blue flash appeared before my eyes every time I closed my eyes, every time I so much as _blinked_. That moment replayed over and over again in my head – seeing Five rip open a portal and disappear through it. Sometimes the moment replayed faster in my head, or even at normal speed, but most of the time it kept flashing though my memories in slow motion. I saw myself reaching out towards him, my hand raised in vain, as I watched his body get swallowed by the portal, limb by limb, cell by cell, until it closed behind him with a hammer-like thump of finality. The moment haunted me, etched into my thoughts like it had been branded there by a hot, merciless iron.

Vanya and I ended up sleeping in the same bed last night. The two of us had locked ourselves away in my room after Five had disappeared, not stirring even when Hargreeves himself came to the door and demanded we open it. With each minute that passed by us we became more doubtful of Five returning, and my horribly cynical side was out in full force, speaking into my thoughts negatively about the possibility of him coming back. Last night Vanya had left the lights on in case Five returned and made him fluffernutter sandwiches, just in case.

“Where do you think he went?” Vanya asked, lying at the opposite end of the bed to me. This was the first time we’d spoken to each other in _hours_.

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” I snapped, sniffing loudly after I had spoken. My eyes were red and swollen and my nose dripped with snot, but I didn’t have the energy nor the care to clean myself up. There was a hole in my chest, a deep, fresh wound there, that only one thing would heal, one person could heal, but there was no sign of them as of yet.

“Don’t say that,” Vanya consoled, her eyes as red and puffy as mine.

“How could he be so _stupid_?!” I said in a choked voice after a brief moment of silence. A fresh round of tears started flowing from my eyes.

“We just have to be positive, Izzie. He’ll find his way back,” Vanya replied, her voice optimistic but even I could tell she was clutching at straws at this point.

“I asked him to stay, Vanny. I _asked_ him to stay and he left anyway,” I said thickly, letting out another loud sniff.

There was a knock on the door. “Go away,” I barked, and covered my face with a pillow.

“It’s me,” said Ben, a firm kindness in his voice.

“Yeah, don’t care unless you’re Five,” I said sharply, moving the pillow from my face so he could hear me clearly.

I felt Vanya’s weight leave the bed and a second later my door clicked open. “I thought you guys could do with some tissues and junk food,” Ben said. I heard several bags hit the floor and the hiss of a bottle being opened.

“I’m only coming out if that’s Fanta. Not the yellow one, the orange one,” I said into my pillow after several moments of silence as Ben and Vanya found themselves sitting on my floor.

“Only the best for you, our princess.”

I looked out from my pillow to see Klaus standing there bowing to me. “I thought you were the princess of the family,” I sniffled, sitting up on my bed.

“Oh, my dear, no! I’m obviously the queen,” Klaus replied, placing a dramatic hand on his chest. 

“Could the queen stop hoggin’ the doorway so the rest of us can get past them?” I heard Diego grumble from behind Klaus. Number Four stepped aside and floated around my room, spreading a strange smell through it as he went. He held up what I identified as a joint to his lips and took a long drag from it.

“Dude, where’d you get the weed?” Diego said, picking the joint out from Klaus’s fingers.

“Brother dearest, I have my ways,” Klaus giggled, plucking the joint back from his brother.

“Dude, that stuff stinks,” Ben said, wrinkling his nose at the smell.

“Wanna try it?” Klaus offered, holding the joint out to Ben.

“I’m good,” he dismissed with a shake of his head.

“More for me!” Klaus said brightly, taking another drag from the joint. He offered it to me. “You look like you could do with a bit of cheering up.”

“Yeah, cheering up, not an asthma attack Klaus,” I quipped at him. I blew my nose into a tissue and binned it before sitting on the ground with the rest of them.

“So, Five just…disappeared yesterday?” Diego said, gently broaching the topic.

Vanya and I nodded at him. “There was nothing we could do. He was determined to try time travel, despite the risks,” Vanya said.

I scoffed irritably. “Well, I hope he gets what he deserves for not listening to me,” I said bitterly, with an undercurrent of hot venom.

As awful as it may sound, that was me speaking truthfully. As upset as I was, my secondary emotion was anger, resentment even. I knew there was a chance he’d make it back, but if he did, he was getting slapped into next Tuesday for all I cared (or the Tuesday after he came back). To say that I was furious with him for not listening to me was a gross understatment. He had been told by his dad not to do it and, while I could understand Five wanting to prove his father wrong, this wasn’t a simple game that he was trying to master. This was _time travel_ , for God’s sake.

What hurt the most, though? He had said that if I asked him to, he would stay. I asked, and yet he left. That’s where a lot of this hurt and pain and deep _ache_ in my chest was emanating from. Why did that hurt so much? It wasn’t just that he had left that hurt, it was because he had said he wouldn’t that did.

“Izzie!” Vanya said, shocked at my words. “You don’t mean that.”

I stiffened slightly. “I do and I don’t,” I snapped at her, but my voice was as hollow and empty as my chest was after I saw Five disappear in a flash and whoosh of blue.

An awkward silence descended. “Well this candy isn’t gonna eat itself,” Ben said brightly, opening up the bags of treats. Diego handed me a cup of Fanta and the five of us munched away on sugary foods. The drinks and the food were borderline tasteless to me because my mind was so preoccupied with other things, and my heart was unsure of how to feel.

Although it wasn’t said aloud, we all had the hope that Five would come back. We just didn’t know how well-founded that hope was.

* * *

_The fourth of April, 2006: Three Six Five._

Over a year had passed, and there had not been the barest trace of Five in that time. Vanya still made sandwiches and left the lights on for him every night without fail in a child-like ritual that made me bitter towards both her and the person she was doing it for.

The mood in the house had changed since Five had disappeared. Vanya became more reclusive than ever. Klaus had completely gone off the rails with the alcohol and the drugs, and Ben was barely managing to hold him together, like he’d become the glass-like glue that was tethering Klaus to this world. Luther and Allison spent most of their time together, only really acknowledging us when deemed absolutely necessary. Diego barely spoke to anyone unless asked to.

And me? I had stayed angry at Five for so long that it had made me irritable all the time. Not even Ben and Klaus could make me smile.

* * *

_The eleventh of May, 2006: A little less lonely together._

I woke up in Ben’s arms, squished between him and Klaus. “You really need to get a bigger bed,” I groaned against Klaus’ back.

Ben chuckled. “I should. You guys end up in here every other night.”

He was right. Deep down past the anger I held for Five, I was scared of him coming back and not hearing him. Sleeping in the same bed at Klaus and Ben reassured me that I wasn’t alone and that if Five did come back, I wouldn’t be alone when he did.

Ben started playing with my hair. By this stage half of it was back to brown and the other was still painfully white, but Ben seemed to like it. I snuggled back into the warmth and softness of his body and drifted back off to sleep.

* * *

_The twelfth of May, 2006: Photograph._

Hargreeves had had a portrait of Five commissioned to mark his disappearance. At breakfast this morning, he had us all gather for a memorial of sorts. He spouted off some drivel about how talented Five was and could have been and how he was now lost in the freezing depths of time, but not much registered with me. Seeing the painting had only reminded me of the loss I felt, like an aching, gaping bullet wound.

Later that day I heard Vanya talking to the portrait, and I’d only caught snippets of what she had said as I wasn’t for sticking around and eavesdropping – it was far from my place to do so, especially considering how our relationship had deteriorated since Five’s disappearance. I guess it was a sort of coping mechanism for her, as she chatted to his oil-and-canvas image. She spoke to him like he was capable of responding, generating a two-way conversation from one that was wholly unilateral. I wanted to shake her out of whatever stupor she’d found herself in, to shout in her face that he wasn’t flesh and blood, that he was only canvas and oil paint, and that she needed to stop being so delusional and emotional. I suppose, deep down, I resented her for being so utterly open about the loss she felt, so utterly human for her to try and process her grief; which was something I had not been able to do well.

As I passed by the living room and saw her sitting on the end of the sofa, speaking relatively animatedly to the portrait, I barely manage to hold in a humourless laugh that, when she heard it, she would turn away from Five’s portrait in shame, her cheeks flaming red. Instead, I inwardly scoffed derisively at Vanya for being so silly and sentimental. If Five were here, he would laugh at her and tell her the same thing.

Yet against my better, rational judgement, I also found myself chatting to Five’s picture once Vanya had left, awkward and stilted and angry as I was as I attempted to chip away at the lump in my chest I knew to be Grief.

* * *

_The fourteenth of November, 2006: Another one bites the dust. 8:43 AM._

Alarms blared through the house. Six of us assembled in the foyer, perfectly dressed in our uniforms as always, and Hargreeves strode in, the harsh planes of his face emphasised by the red lights of the alarms. “This is a mission that I need Number Two, Four and Six for. The rest of you will remain here on standby in case of emergency,” he demanded, with a steel-like sharpness.

I gripped Ben’s hand at this. Although it wasn’t unusual that only a couple of us best suited to a particular mission were called onto it, ever since Five had disappeared, I didn’t like when the whole team didn’t go – none of us did, whether we had verbalised our concern or not.

“Hey, it’ll be fine,” Ben said reassuringly, sticking his domino mask over his eyes with a clumsy hand, “I’ll see you later, okay? Don’t worry.”

That was easier said than done, and despite him trying to reassure me, I was anything but. I lifted his hand up to my lips and kissed the back of it chastely. “If you come back with even a single scratch, I get all of your Sour Patch Kids,” I replied blithely, and he knew I wasn’t even slightly joking about my threat about his candy.

“Ooh,” Ben said in a half mocking tone, his mouth forming an ‘O’ shape as he shook his hands at me in jest and walked backwards towards the front door, “I’ll have to be extra careful then.”

“Number Six!” Hargreeves bellowed from where he sat in the car, “let’s get a move on, no dillydallying!”

Ben looked back at me regretfully. “I’ll see you soon,” he said, rushing out of the foyer and hopping into the car.

“You’d better!” I called after him, the warmth from his hand etched into my skin as the black vehicle rushed away.

Luther, Allison and I were the ones who’d been left behind. “I guess we stay on standby then,” Allison chimed. She looked at me quickly, trying to gauge my response to her words. We had mellowed to each other’s presence over the years but that was the extent of it. Tolerating each other seemed like the best we could do.

I never had figured out why she had rumoured me. I understood that she had only done what she’d been told by her father, and she was only seven so she couldn’t have known that what she was doing wasn’t right, but I still clung to that ember of childish hate towards her. It wasn’t the most mature thing to do and I should’ve moved past it, but there was a part of me that couldn’t. I would always be curious about why I’d been rumoured. I knew I’d forgotten something, and that left a dark, misty gap in my memory, but what could it have been? When I thought about the memory I’d lost, there was a powerful pull in what I believed to be my soul towards it. Trying to recall the memory felt like having the words on the tip of my tongue, but being unable to convert the words into speech.

“Standby it is,” I mumbled. Luther and Allison went in the direction of the kitchen together and I went to the living room, dimly lit through the windows by the sun’s weak rays, which were mostly hidden behind a dense, grey bank of cloud. I perched on the arm rest of the sofa by the unlit fireplace, the leather cool and smooth beneath my fingers.

“Hey, Five,” I said to his portrait once they were out of ear shot, “it’s been a whole week since I last talked to you. How are you doing? Where are you now? If you’ve gone back and become an Egyptian Pharaoh, I swear I’ll come and rob your tomb if it hasn’t been already,” I said with a chuckle. Then there was a sad sigh. “I’m still mad at you, but I miss you. The others are out on a mission right now - pretty sure Klaus is high again. Ben’s been trying to keep a lid on his habit but it’s how Klaus seems to cope with the whole ‘seeing the dead’ thing he’s got going on. Diego keeps talking about how he’s gonna move out next year when we’re seventeen.

How crazy is that? We turn seventeen next year and I’m still stuck in the body of a thirteen-year-old. In the three years since the accident, I think I’ve aged…maybe a month? But at least my brown hair is coming back. Seems like these treatments of Hargreeves are working, but they’re not working fast enough for me. You always said I was too impatient for my own good, so all I can hope for is that one day I’ll start ageing like normal again,” I continued with a sour smile, “but what Diego said…it’s freaked me out. He’s so antsy to get out of here that it’s affecting all of us. I don’t think that any of us have really thought about life outside of this place, you know? Going to uni, getting a degree, shacking up with someone…I think it scares us – _all_ of us. Our whole lives have been planned by Hargreeves that the idea of forging our own path is completely foreign.”

I took a big breath, my lips pursed and straight except at the very outermost corners in a knowing smile. “But you wouldn’t be scared. You’d be telling us to get off our asses and explore the world, right? You’d tell us not to be afraid of the unknown,” I sighed loudly, reaching up to sweep my thumb across the tarnished surface of my necklace as my expression turned bitter, “but that fearlessness backfired. You’re still _gone_. There’s no way of knowing where you are,” I continued, my voice taking on a resigned quality to it as the anger towards Five dissipated, “but I just hope that you’re safe. Wherever you are, please be safe. And remember us,” I said, reaching out to lightly touch the portrait of him, dragging a finger across his cheekbone depicted by paints on canvas in a reverent manner.

“Remember me.”

* * *

_The fourteenth of November, 2006: Another one bites the dust. 2:17 PM._

I was starting to get antsy. I’d stayed in the living room this whole time and had only left to get a book. Luther, Allison and I had been served our lunch by Grace and we ate it on the counter of the living room’s bar in utter silence, the only sounds coming from us chewing our food (which was utterly bland against my taste buds, but it wasn’t a result of Grace’s cooking – it was due to nerves). Since then we’d remained sprawled out on the living room sofas with me on one and them sharing the other. As time ticked on, the anxiety all of us felt almost manifested as a person. Allison played with her hair and Luther fiddled his thumbs, while my thumb swept incessantly over the silver face of my necklace, seeking even the slightest piece of comfort from it.

Allison stood up and sighed in frustration. “Shouldn’t we have heard something by now?” she asked, her body jittery with anxiety. Her skirt, which was usually perfectly pressed, had been wrinkled by her hands constantly bundling the material into fists from the nerves.

“It’s probably just taking them a bit longer than we thought,” Luther replied, trying to soothe her as she paced around the room. The look in his eyes spoke volumes about how he was really feeling, and he too was worried.

“It’s just-I hate being side-lined. At least when I’m on a mission I can control things,” Allison continued, walking around the living room with no set route beneath her feet.

I scoffed at this. “That’s one word for it,” I mumbled, seeking a rise from her.

Allison paused in her pacing. “What’s that supposed to mean?” she asked waspishly folding her arms over her chest in a manner that just screamed attitude. I’d hit a nerve, and that was exactly what I’d been gunning for.

“Control is your whole thing, right? I found how you phrased that funny,” I replied calmly, appraising her with an almost bored look in my eyes. My nerves had somehow transformed themselves into something that sought out distraction, and my brain had targeted Allison.

Luther looked uncomfortable with the confrontation, and his body shifted to show this. “At least _I_ can use my powers,” Allison shot back venomously.

I sat up on the sofa, annoyance clear on my face. “Oh, sorry I got into an accident that nearly killed me,” I retorted, a real bite to my voice.

Allison chuckled derisively, and a focused, almost cruel look entered her eyes. “There’s always an excuse, isn’t there? Poor Izzie with her family outside of the Academy, poor Izzie who sees herself as an outsider, poor Izzie who got _fried_ ,” she retaliated, her voice quiet but bitterly cold to the point where it stung me.

“ _Guys_!” Luther raised his voice, breaking through the aggressive wall that had been our conversation. “Don’t you hear that?”

Allison and I remained in a silent standoff, staring unblinkingly at each other. There was a ringing noise breaking through the silence of the house. “Is that the house phone?” Allison inquired, coming to stand in front of Luther.

“Sounds like it,” Luther replied, standing slowly to his feet in curiosity.

Ever since we were children, we knew that use of the house phone was forbidden. Hargreeves was the only one allowed to answer it, but in his absence that duty fell to Pogo and Grace. We heard the ringing stop abruptly showing that the call had been answered. Unconsciously, the three of us tilted our heads in the direction the ringing had come from.

A few moments later, Pogo walked into view. The chimpanzee had aged and moved more slowly as a result, and now had a pair of half-moon glasses perched over his as a symbol of this. As he got closer, the look on his face became clearer as the walking stick he had clicked ominously against the tiles. He wasn’t that father-like figure now-he was a harbinger of disaster. Even the usual intelligent, twinkling look in his eyes was gone, the look that separated him from the rest of his kind, and this made my heart beat like an alarm bell in my chest.

“Luther,” Allison said, her voice trembling. I saw her arm reach behind her towards Luther, who took up her small, extended hand in a smothering grip. We knew whatever Pogo was about to tell us was bad. I had no-one to go to for comfort like Allison and Luther did, so instead I braced myself as best I could.

“Master Luther, Miss Allison, Miss Isabel, you have been requested to join the others in the mission field immediately,” he said, a strangely empty tone in his voice.

“What’s going on, Pogo?” Luther demanded, swinging a his free hand in a fist downwards through the air in frustration.

“All I can say is that your father has requested you to join him as a matter of urgency.” He folded his hands over each other on top of his cane, and his head was lowered as if he couldn’t make eye contact with us.

“Something’s gone wrong with the mission, hasn’t it?” Allison questioned, her voice shaking and eyes wide and watery.

Pogo looked away. “All I know is that you three are to get in the car outside and help where you can.”

“Oh no,” I said, holding a hand up to my face. “Pogo, is someone hurt?”

The chimpanzee deflated slightly and turned his back to us. “Please, you need to go. There may still be time.”

“Time? For what?” Luther questioned.

“Screw this,” I said through clenched teeth, running out of the house and into the car. Luther and Allison followed, and as soon as they had closed the door behind them, the car sped off in a cloud of tyre smoke.

* * *

_The fourteenth of November, 2006: 6:45 PM. That’s all she wrote._

Ben was dead.

* * *

_The nineteenth of November, 2006: In Memoriam._

In a perfect example of pathetic fallacy that would make any English teacher cry, it rained all day. Water pelted down from the sky from dawn until dusk, falling like icy daggers from dark, ominous clouds that didn’t once lighten or part. The members of the Hargreeves household and I stood outside in the house’s courtyard as Ben’s statue was erected there. There he was, etched in black granite, water streaming down the polished stone and late autumn leaves sticking to it from where they’d been whipped up by the seasonal wind.

The mission had started out as a rescue and turned into a recovery, except there wasn’t anything to recover. Klaus and Diego had hardly spoken in the five days that had followed. Diego’s silence was due to him taking in everything that had happened and he was blaming himself; he was Number Two, he had been the leader that day, and for that reason I had, initially, put all of the blame onto him for Ben’s death. I had ranted and raged and cried at him that night we’d lost Ben, and had only stopped when I had thrown up over the living room carpet from the stress of the day. When I felt someone’s arms wrap around me as I sobbed on the floor, a pile of vomit in front of me, I had thought it had been Klaus. When the body against me started weeping softly and shaking from their grief, I registered that it had been Diego, and in a millisecond, I knew that I was wrong to put the blame solely on him.

This had been an opportunity to prove himself to his father that he could lead just as well as Luther, and that had backfired in the most tragic way possible, but from what we knew of the mission it wasn’t his judgment that had led to tragedy.

He remained locked up in his room, not even emerging for meals since that night the two of us mourned together in the living room as the stench of my stomach contents enraptured us. I had seen glimpses of him when Grace brought him meals, but he didn’t speak to even her. On the one occasion he did, his stutter returned. It didn’t take much for me to cry these days, but hearing his speech impediment return sent me into a silent fit of tears.

Klaus’ silence was another matter entirely, and the state of his room was testament to that. Empty bottles of liquor and rolling papers and tiny bags containing some powerful (and illegal drugs) were scattered everywhere. His silence was to try and block it all out, rather than process it like his brother. Neither ways that the two of them were using to grieve were healthy, but at least Diego was allowing himself to feel.

Luther had his arm around Allison as we gathered around the coffin. It was just for show, to act as a symbol for us to help us process our grief, but it was empty save for a set of his uniform. All of us held dark umbrellas over our heads to shield us from the icy rain, which was now accompanied by harsh flurries of snow. Diego and Grace stood close together as we observed the white coffin emblazoned at the top with a small image of _him_.

_The sixteenth of November, 2006: 12:09 AM._

_The tears had barely ceased in the hours since Pogo had given us the news. I remember Allison crumpling into Luther’s arms and feeling numb after his delivery. Vanya had been at a music lesson and she arrived home just after Hargreeves had with all of us in tow. Diego and Klaus, the ones who’d originally undertaken the mission, didn’t – and couldn’t, because they were so traumatised – speak about what had happened prior to our arrival. Hargreeves had gathered us together that night for a very sombre dinner that barely any of us had the stomach before._

_Ben was dead._

_It was sad. There were so many more words that I could use to describe what had happened and how I felt, but all I could process was the feeling of sadness. There was a deep ache in where I could only describe as the place my soul physically resided that words couldn’t express, like my body was hollow. None of us really grieved together that day other than Allison and Luther._

_“Hi, Five,” I said to his portrait, sniffing loudly as I entered the living room and stood in front of the painting. There were several scrunched-up tissues in the pockets of my pyjamas, and my voice was thick and raspy when I spoke. I held one of the tissues in my hand to stem the flow of secretions leaking out of my swollen nose and eyes, “I guess you’re kind of the lucky one here, not having to deal with this right now. Ben-he’s dead. Killed on a mission. And, um, no-one’s really dealing with it. Your dad’s locked himself in his office and we’re not coping well. I guess having a father like yours and growing up in a family like this makes you a little emotionally stunted,” I chuckled weakly, wiping tears from my cheeks, which were rough and sore from repeatedly wiping at them “it’s got me thinking about everything. Diego keeps harping on about leaving the Academy and I think Klaus and Vanya are in the same boat, especially after losing Ben._

_I’d also consider hopping in that boat. It feels like the Academy is starting to fall apart now you and Ben are gone. I know you’d tell us all to get the eff out of here and live our lives, but that’s hard to say when I haven’t heard your voice in so long,” I said, the realisation of that knocking the wind out of me, “Frig, it’s awful that I’m starting to forget things about you already.”_

_I sniffled again and blew my nose in a very unladylike manner into a tissue. “But when I think of you being gone compared to Ben being dead, there’s no finality to your disappearance compared to his death. I hope you’re out there somewhere and that you’re okay. Because right now, your family, me…we’re not,” I continued, my voice trembling dangerously. I placed my hands on the frame of his portrait and gripped it tightly. The feeling of it grounded me, but did nothing to make me feel better._

I found Klaus in Ben’s bed the next morning, drunk as anything, and crawled in beside him until we both came to. I was jealous of Klaus in that moment because he had drunk so much alcohol that it prevented him from feeling, from _remembering_. And then when the alcohol wore off and he started to remember, I wasn’t so jealous anymore.

The days leading up to the memorial service were quiet. It was like the heart had been ripped out of the Academy, which in many ways Ben represented. The house had a dark cloud lingering above it that seeped into its very foundations, into the mortar that held the bricks together and the tiles that shielded us, making everything seem duller, like everything was being seen through a darker lense.

Back in the present moment, Pogo hobbled outside with the help of his cane followed by Hargreeves. “Your father is ready to give the eulogy, children,” he announced. There was a desperate, deep sadness in his eyes.

Hargreeves joined the half-circle we had formed and filed in beside Grace. “The world is full of injustice. Good people die along with the bad. This cosmic equation will never change, unless evil itself is wiped from existence. Thankfully, there are powerful forces pushing back against the wicked and iniquitous, individuals who have the strength to pull together against insurmountable odds to face adversity with unblinking courage, and not to hesitate to sacrifice themselves for another,” he spoke in his usual rapid fire tone.

Once Luther, Allison and I had reached the mission field that day, there was little we could do. The worst had already come to pass. We couldn’t have saved Ben – no-one could have. But this speech Hargreeves was giving…it was nicer than what I could have ever imagined. It actually sounded that despite Ben’s death, we were the forces that were pushing back against evil.

That was, until he continued.

“Unfortunately, none of you are such people.” I felt my heart drop from my chest and plop onto the ground by my feet. Klaus’s face fell. Even Luther looked upset at his father’s words. Diego reached out to cling to Grace’s hand and Allison and Vanya had tears streaming from their eyes.

“Despite years of training and weeks of preparation, you allowed Number Six to die on this mission,” Hargreeves went on.

“It wasn’t our fault!” Allison defended tearily, saying what all of us were thinking but being the only one with either the guts or stupidity to do so.

“Excuses?” he exclaimed. Luther reached out to rub Allison’s arm to comfort her, “I will not hear them,” he replied, his words cutting into her like a knife colder than the snow falling around us. Except it wasn’t just her that his words were meant for; they cut into all of us, stabbing us repeatedly in the heart. Hargreeves then had the gall to resume his biting speech, blaming us for Ben’s death as if he were blameless. Here, he was absolving himself from all blame for what happened to Ben and burdening us with it, like he hadn’t raised us the way he had, for the purpose of being an elite team of ‘superheroes’.

“The Umbrella Academy has failed one of their own, the consequences of which are dire. Hold on to this feeling children, let it fester in your hearts…so there is never the next time. Training will be cancelled today out of respect for your brother. We resume tomorrow at six AM.” With a swift turn of his heel and twitch of his moustache, he was gone. Grace and Pogo followed suit. 

The lack of human emotion that man had never failed to amaze me. Within the same breath, he had told us that we had failed and that something as trivial as training had been cancelled. The seamless shift between those two things was nothing short of stunning to me.

“Ben,” I spoke up, a real fire lighting in my belly. Hargreeves stopped in his tracks and turned to face me, holding the door from the courtyard to the house open. “His name was Ben.” My voice and body shook with emotion. How he referred to Ben as merely ‘Number Six’ had really struck a chord in my heart, spurring me to react this way. Even in death, his son, _his son_ , was a mere pawn to him; a vessel of power that he could tap into and use for his own benefit.

He stared at me for a moment longer and then disappeared into the house, his face unreadable. Instead of making today about Ben and saying nice things about him to send him off with good memories, Hargreeves had made it all about _our_ failures. A funeral was traumatising enough as it was, but then to get the blame for the death of the person the funeral was being held for? That was something else entirely. No wonder we didn’t know how to grieve properly.

“It wasn’t anyone’s fault,” Vanya sniffled.

“How would you know, Vanya? You weren’t even on the mission,” Diego replied icily. That only made for an already very emotional Vanya to become more emotional. She fled from the courtyard, the only evidence of her presence being her footsteps in the settling snow.

“Nice going, asshole,” Luther seethed at Diego.

“We were all thinking it!” Diego replied defensively. The way he had spoken to Vanya was callous, but it was also a by-product of his heightened emotions and how he was blaming himself for what had happened. I could understand why he’d reacted the way he had, but that did little to excuse his actions.

“Oh, so you’re thinking Diego? That’s a first,” Allison scowled.

“Screw you!” Diego shouted.

“Guys,” I spoke up quietly, rage thrumming through my words as my face was stony, “take it inside. Don’t disrespect Ben like this. He deserves – _deserved_ better than this,” I replied as I stumbled over my words, my throat closing up dangerously with anguish.

Luther, Allison and Diego all looked at each other. “Dad was right, we should’ve done more. This didn’t have to happen,” one of them said, but I didn’t know or care who had.

“Guys!” I shouted, and electricity pulsed through the air. Allison’s hair stood on end. I could hear the crackle of current threatening to find a grounding point which, if I wasn’t careful, would end up being them. “Don’t make me repeat myself.”

Luther scoffed at me, completely undeterred by this. “Now who’s ruining Ben’s funeral?”

I glared daggers at him as the air inside the courtyard began to crackle more ominously, whitish-yellow sparks beginning to pop out from the air around me. I felt the strain on my body of holding up the current for so long, even if the original wave had been born of an emotional outburst. I still wasn’t back to my full power following the accident.

As the air snapped and popped, Luther, Diego and Allison got the message and left. As soon as they touched the doorhandle, I let the current dissipate into nothing. They were doing what I had wanted, and they would have received a fairly bad shock from touching the metal handle if I hadn’t. As the door closed behind them, I heard the bickering restart.

That left Klaus and I in the courtyard. We walked over to the gazebo and sheathed our umbrellas. Klaus was surprisingly sober today, considering the occasion, and for good reason.

“Do you think you can do it?” I asked him, setting down my umbrella.

He looked at me unsurely. “This is the first time I’ve been sober in a while…but I’ll try my best, Iz. It’s also the first time I’ve ever _wanted_ my power to work so let’s see if it can,” he said with a pat to my shoulder.

I watched as he clenched his fists together. They shone blue and his face screwed up in concentration, a warbling sound emanating as his hands. He shook as he used his powers and then, suddenly, stopped.

Klaus turned around with a gasp, facing into empty space. My face filled with comprehension at this. “Did it work? Is he here?” I asked, stumbling over my words as I tried to get them out into the air as quickly as I could. A small smile appeared on his face. “It did,” I exhaled, my breath coming out as a vapour when it hit the cold air.

“You’re back in the land of the living!” Klaus said thickly to the empty space. “It’s been a total shitshow since you died. The family’s a mess.”

I stood beside Klaus and looked in the direction he was speaking. “Klaus, where is he? Can he see me?” I asked as he opened a flask that reeked of alcohol. He took a long swig from it.

“He can see you, Iz. He says hi,” Klaus said in between sips.

“Hi? That’s all?” I said disappointedly.

“He…says he doesn’t know what to say to you.”

“That’s all? We contact him across the boundaries of life and death and he’s _nothing_ to say to me?”

“He says he didn’t mean it that way. He says to tell you that he knows. And that you can have those Sour Patch Kids he’s been hiding,” Klaus replied, linking his arm through mine.

He _knows_.

That was all I needed.

He knew how I felt and…that was all I needed to hear. Tears silently streamed down my face, but this time they were happy tears. What had gone unsaid between us was now out in the open, and I realised in that moment how fortunate I was to have had Ben in my life, and now someone who could commune with the dead.

“Thank you, Ben,” I said, reaching out into empty space.

“He’s holding your hand,” Klaus said, “or at least he’s trying to. You know, being a ghost and all.”

I let out a watery laugh and sniffled. “Thanks for this Klaus.”

“No problem,” he said, facing me with a smile. Then his head whipped around to where Ben was ‘standing’. “What? No! Why?”

“What’s he saying?” I asked him. His tone had panicked me.

“He’s saying he needs to go back,” he said to me, “you just got here!” he said to Ben. There was a moment where Ben must have replied to Klaus. “Pfft, that thing? You can go whenever you want.” Another silence. “Yeah, you can go whenever you want. Trust me, Benerino, it’s not goin’ anywhere. I’m the expert on the dead, remember? Hey, wanna watch me piss in Dad’s gas tank?”

“What is going on with this conversation?” I asked confusedly. Only hearing one side of a conversation was more frustrating than I could express.

“I’ve convinced Benny to stick around for a while,” Klaus replied. While that raised more questions than it answered, I didn’t have the chance to ask them. Klaus had grabbed my hand and we were running past Ben’s casket, with Ben following behind us.

“Wait, I don’t want to see you pee into a car!”

* * *

_The first of October, 2007; Bye bye, little Sebastian._

The tension in the house had been on a knife’s edge for weeks. Today, we turned eighteen and that was the day shit hit the fan. Most of the driving force behind this tension had come from Diego, who, of course, had been spouting off for months about leaving the house once he became an adult. Vanya, in her own shy way, was also wanting to escape and everyone knew why. The way she’d been treated by her adoptive father, and at times her siblings and I, had been nothing short of shameful. Of us all, Vanya had it the worst when it came to how Hargreeves viewed her. She was the only child he had adopted who didn’t have powers and she constantly felt like a disappointment to him because of that.

Luther was in the opposite camp to Diego and Allison was with him. However, I had overheard the two of them arguing the other night when Allison had hinted at wanting to pursue a career as an actress, and this had obviously upset and angered Luther, who was loyal to the Umbrella Academy to his core.

Klaus – well, Klaus was Klaus. He would go wherever the wind took him, the free spirit he was. And also, wherever he could get drugs from. Hargreeves had checked him into rehab twice now to no effect. For me, it was the lure of my family that was tempting me to leave. In the eleven years I’d been at the Academy, I had seen them a handful of times and they were the happiest I had been, especially following Five’s disappearance and Ben’s death.

I had a brother and sister back home. The brother, Louis, was nineteen and heading into his second year of Chemical Engineering at uni. My younger sister, Anna, was fourteen and starting to think about what she would study for her GCSEs. My mum and dad were doing fine (Dad was in the Fire Service and Mum was a secretary) but they were getting older. Now that I was turning eighteen really brought home that I had missed out on so much. I’d never had a normal education, we were all pushed to study material beyond our age limit, and where other kids did extracurriculars, I learned martial arts, much to my chagrin.

There was a life outside of the Academy and it was tempting me to pursue it, but I didn’t know how or if I should leave. Was it selfish to leave the others behind and do what I wanted?

Our birthday passed with little fanfare. This year we hadn’t even had the time to buy each other presents because the Academy had been pulled into so many situations recently. We were all sat down at the dinner table, the only indication that today was special being a birthday cake Grace had made sitting in the middle of it.

There was a horrible feeling in the room, like something was about to explode from the tension that was present. Tonight was one of the very rare occasions that we didn’t eat dinner accompanied by a commentary playing in the background.

The feeling came from Diego. He picked at his food moodily, his movements jerky. I barely dared to look in his direction for fear of him losing his temper at me. Halfway through the meal, there was a clatter as silverware hit china plate.

“I can’t take this anymore,” Diego said. There was a loud squeaking noise as he pushed away from the table.

“Number Two, you have not been dismissed!” Hargreeves shouted at him in a way that was oddly reminiscent of the way he’d yelled at Five on that fateful day.

Diego didn’t turn back. He ran up the stairs in the direction of our bedrooms. No-one moved to go after him. Five minutes later he was changed out of his uniform and into normal clothing. There was a large gym bag in his hand and a backpack slung over his shoulders. “I’m leaving,” he said determinedly. There was a real fire in his eyes that, if it could speak, said ‘don’t challenge me’.

Hargreeves set down his cutlery and eyeballed his son. “You will do no such thing. You are my son, and I am telling you that you are to remain here.”

Diego threw down the gym bag. “I am _eighteen_ now. You don’t get to tell me what I can and cannot do. It’s time I stopped being second-best and found my own path.” At this, Luther fidgeted uncomfortably.

“Number Two-”

“ _My name_ ,” Diego exploded, pointing an aggressive finger at his father, “is Diego. We are _not_ numbers, we are your children, we have names. And I am _done_ with all of this.”

Diego looked at his father ferociously, but when his gaze moved to look at the rest of us, especially Grace, who was standing to the side of the room looking visibly upset, his eyes softened.

“Diego-” Grace started, a leading tone in her voice.

Diego could barely hold up a hand to stop her. She was his one great weakness in this family. “I’m sorry, M-Mom,” he stuttered. Tearing his eyes from his mother, he turned resolutely on his heel, picked up the gym bag and marched out of the house without so much as a goodbye.

There was a stillness to us all as we heard the front door slam shut. Hargreeves broke that with a cough to clear with throat and a rustling of the evening newspaper he had been reading. “He’ll be back,” he said confidently.

This was one of those occasions that he was wrong.

* * *

_The third of October, 2007: See you later, Vanya-gator._

My training session with Luther had ended early. Until recently I had trained with Diego, who was easily the most driven martial artist of us all. Training with him had pushed me to levels I didn’t know I could reach and he still put me on my ass at least twice a lesson. Now that he was gone, Luther would have to do. Klaus wasn’t the best partner to spar with at the best of times and Allison…well, I don’t need to tell you why I don’t spar with her. We had been paired up once when we were younger, and the fact that we’ve never been partnered again tells you how well _that_ went.

Five was gone. Ben was gone. Diego was gone. The Academy was crumbling and at this rate of going, there wouldn’t be many of us left. Luther was a shoo-in to stay; he was too loyal to Hargreeves as ‘Daddy’s little golden boy’. Allison would stay for Luther’s sake, but I had a feeling that eventually the lure of the outside world would overcome her feelings for him. It was only a matter of time.

I trekked up the stairs of the unusually quiet house. Since Diego had left, there had been such a deep feeling of loss inside of me, a dark pit of defeat. The way I had grown up – we had all grown up – was dysfunctional to the core. Yet there had been good times, times that I cherished. Who else got to grow up around seven other kids? Who else got to see Diego give Luther a huge wedgie in training when we were nine? Or waited for Five to Blink out of the house to the nearest bookstore the night the newest _Harry Potter_ book came out? Or danced with Klaus in the bathroom while we brushed our teeth, bopping along to some obscure album of Luther’s?

I fiddled with the silver chain around my neck. The silver disc was scratched and dull, but the engravings of the North Star and Celtic knot remained on either side of it. Then there was the life I had missed out on. My mother hadn’t intended on having another child so soon after Louis, but then the first of October, 1989 happened. I had grown up in a loving, normal home for the first seven years of my life. I remember something bad happening which landed me here, but I still mourned for the life I could have had. I knew that, like the Hargreeves siblings, Sir had approached my parents and asked to adopt me. They said no, and still I ended up here.

If I’d been born normal, like Vanya, without powers, I never would have ended up in the Academy. I’d be applying for university and studying for my A Levels right now if I hadn’t. I would get to see my own family more than once a year and for more than a couple of days.

Would I have a boyfriend? How many friends would I have had? Would I have found out by now what I really enjoyed studying, and know what I wanted to do with my life? I know for sure that I wouldn’t have a security camera in my room at night recording me as I slept or having to wear electrodes on my temples one night a month so Sir could track my brain waves. You know, the more I think about it, the more I wonder how Hargreeves ever managed to adopt seven children. What had child protective services been playing at when they let him adopt kids? Maybe it was because he was a rich.

I sighed as I reached the top of the stairs. Both Klaus’s and Vanya’s bedroom doors were open. The former was jumping on his bed, smoking something with a wickedly funky smell, wearing nothing but a pair of bright green leopard-print boxers, a pink feather boa and a cowboy hat.

“Klaus, get down from there before you fall and break a bone. The paramedics don’t want to see whatever this is,” I said as I leaned against the door frame, gesticulating at his current clothing (or lack thereof) state.

Klaus flopped down onto his bed with a loud squeaking of mattress springs. “I think you mean, what paramedic _wouldn’t_ want to see me like this? I’m hot and I know it,” he said.

“You’re trashy, that’s what you are,” I retorted, leaning against the frame of his bedroom door.

Klaus dramatically gasped, placing a splayed hand on his chest. “I’ll have you know that I’m classy as well as trashy. I’m sexy trash,” he said with a giggle.

“Whatever you say, dear,” I replied, coming in and flopping down on top of him.

“Ugh,” Klaus protested, “you’re so much heavier than you look.”

“Rude.”

I rolled off Klaus and lay beside him with my head on his chest. One of his hands gently played with the ends of my hair. “Why did you never dye your hair?” Klaus asked, his voice slightly muffled by the joint in his mouth.

“Your dad never let me. He said that it was a good marker of how well my cells were regenerating,” I replied, taking the joint out of his mouth and squishing the lit end of it to the side of his desk.

“Hey!” he protested with a pout.

“It’s for your own good, Klausy-Wausy,” I sang at him.

“Your hair is so _brown_ ,” he said in awe, lifting a strand of it to his nose and inhaling deeply.

I snatched it away from him. “You get weirder every day,” I replied, a little exasperatedly.

“I try my best.”

By now all but one small section of my hair had turned back to brown. In the five years since my accident, I had aged around five months. I was still stuck in my prepubescent body while Klaus was in an adult one. I’d gotten a lot of function back; my cells were regenerating faster by the day, I now healed only slightly slower than normal people, but my body wasn’t ageing. I was somewhat of a medical phenomenon. Still, at least I would always get dirty looks from women when I told them my age in the future. It’d be my party trick.

“You ever think of leaving here?” Klaus mused, pulling a curl of mine through his fingers.

“Is it wrong that I do?” I replied quietly, like I was confiding something dangerous to him.

“Nah. I would have left when Diego did, but this place is great for selling stuff for money. Plus, I get to live here rent free,” Klaus replied.

I turned my face up to look at him face on. “Do you think that if your dad hadn’t pushed you so hard when you were younger, you still would have gone to the drugs?” I inquired bluntly.

“With my father? And this living with this family? I’m surprised I’m the only one who did. Of course, Diego dabbled in it once or twice, but that was it.”

“Does it help? With the voices?”

“Yeah.” And that was the end of that conversation.

Klaus continued to play with my hair as we lay there quietly. I looked around the room at the paintings we had made when we were younger, when we were a group of eight instead of four.

“Gone,” I said, pointing to Diego’s painting, “dead,” for Ben’s, “reclusive violinist,” for Vanya, “two seconds away from shacking up with each other,” I said pointing between Allison’s and Luther’s.

“That just grosses me out,” Klaus gagged, but then started to hum ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ under his breath. “High all the time,” he pointed to his own and the to mine after he’d finished humming, “an eternal child who will always need her I.D to buy alcopops,” I giggled at this, “and…poof,” he finished for Five, making gestures with his hands that mimicked an explosion.

I couldn’t help but go over to Ben’s and Five’s paintings once Klaus was done. I traced the markings on the wall where they had written their names. I smiled at the cartoon octopus grinning out at me and looked sadly at Five’s depiction of Saturn, which was now missing two of the sequins that made up its iconic ring.

“Would you hate me if I left?” I asked Klaus, tangling my fingers in fairy lights.

“No, I wouldn’t,” Klaus replied, a moment of sobriety shining through the cloud of drugs he was under. “We’ve all got to start living our lives at some point. The Academy’s done at this point, so why wait around to watch it dissolve?”

I ended up having to yank the fairy lights from my fingers as I’d tangled them too tightly around them. “You make an excellent point.”

There was a knock on the door. Vanya stood in the doorway with two suitcases on either side of her. I saw Klaus’s face fall as he realised what was happening. “No Vanya, not you too,” he gasped, the feather boa he was wearing shedding several pink feathers as he stood up.

Vanya nodded jerkily. “Yeah well, Diego inspired me, I guess. I have an audition for a concert band across town and a landlord over there has leased me an apartment. I’ll teach violin lessons to get myself on my feet and then…” she exhaled sharply as she trailed off. She had a plan, but she didn’t know where that was going to end up leading her. Which, I suppose, was one of the best types of plans.

“Aww sis, little Vanny,” Klaus said, enveloping his sister in a huge bear hug. Vanya wrapped her arms around him tightly.

“She’s leaving the nest,” I said with a smile. I also gave her a hug once she broke away from Klaus, albeit it was a shorter and not as tight hug. It also involved more clothes. “You deserve to be happy, Vanya. Go and learn to be happy away from this place.”

Vanya nodded at me. The two of us hadn’t been close since Five had disappeared, but I knew that if Five were here he would be her biggest cheerleader in this moment.

“Wait, does Dad know?” Klaus asked her.

She shook her head. “No, but I’m leaving him a note. I’ve already said bye to Mom and Pogo and the others,” she said. From the way she was bouncing on the balls of her feet I could tell she was nervous about leaving the Academy, but it was an excited kind of nervousness.

“Well, you’re always welcome here,” Klaus said, spinning around and pointing to his room. “Don’t be a stranger, Vanny.”

“And the same to you guys too,” she added quickly, “my landlord said no parties, but I don’t think I’m planning on throwing any of those for a while,” she ended with a nervous laugh.

“If I’m there, it’s always a party,” Klaus drawled.

“Sounds like a plan, Vanya,” I said.

There was a chime from the grandfather clock in the hallway signifying it was a quarter past eleven in the morning. “Oh shoot! My cab is booked to come for now,” Vanya said. She gathered up her suitcases in a squirrel-like manner.

“Do you want some help?” I asked her.

She shook her head. “No, I’m good. It’s not like I had much to pack…” she trailed off, sad yet bitter at the same time. She took one last look into her childhood bedroom, an unreadable expression on her face, and then steeled herself for what was to come.

“We’ll see you out,” I said, grabbing Klaus’s forearm as he went to roll another joint. He protested at this, but I yanked him behind me regardless.

As we passed Vanya’s room, it was like I was seeing the world through her eyes. Born without superpowers, she had always been the one left out. She had been isolated from her siblings and from me once I came on the scene. She had been given the smallest bedroom, received the worst treatment from her father and had almost always been alone. I was ashamed to admit it, but I knew I could have done more for her, looked out for her better, especially after Five, the one person who really connected with her, had disappeared.

There was a deep feeling of shame in my chest as Klaus and I saw Vanya clambered into the taxi and pull away from the house. She waved at us when the cab began to move, but after that she didn’t look back once. And you know what? Good for her.

As I saw the cab disappear from view, one thing had been made certain to me. I would leave the Academy at Christmas, and there was nothing that could convince me otherwise.

* * *

_The 24 th of December, 2007: There she goes. 10:47 PM._

“Yeah Mum, I’ve got my ticket and everything. Yes, the suitcase is on its way to the place. No, there have not been any delays,” I listed off down the phone at the airport to her.

After Vanya had left the Academy in October, I had snuck away to use the house phone (use of which was completely forbidden to us, so I was crapping myself the entire time I used it). I’d informed my Mum of my plans to come home and to say she was delighted would have been an understatement. The flights had been booked by her during that phone call – a one-way ticket to Dublin, Ireland. She and Dad would pick me up once I landed.

“Okay, I love you and I’ll see you soon,” I said, hanging up the phone. I turned to what remained of the Academy minus Hargreeves, who had denied the invitation to come. Deep, deep down inside of me was a little feeling of disappointment. After all these years of staying in his house and he didn’t even come to say goodbye. Yet, I wasn’t surprised: that man had an emotional range of one of Luther’s toenail clippings. Even Pogo and Grace had been allowed to come on a rare external excursion.

I adjusted the dark green backpack that was cutting into my shoulder blades. There was such a range of emotions that I was currently feeling: sadness, excitement, fear, loss, happiness. How one person could feel so much at once and not explode was boggling to me. I was going home, like _actually_ going back to the place I knew as home. I was free from the tyranny of Hargreeves. My life was now becoming my own.

We were a funny looking group. We stood by the area that had been marked out as ‘Departures’. People bustled past us and went through to security, and gave us some funny looks and prolonged stares. Pogo was the reason for that.

I twiddled my passport between my fingers, boarding pass safely tucked inside. There was a thin layer of sweat sticking the backing of my passport to my hand. “Well, this is it,” I said to the group.

“Worst Christmas ever,” Klaus whined, pulling me into a tight hug.

“At least we got Christmas Eve together,” I replied with a soft smile as we separated. “And I have my Christmas present from you guys, I’ll not open them until I get home. Klaus, you need to have some semblance of self-control and not open the ones I got you until tomorrow.” I poked him in the chest to emphasise this.

“You’re no fun,” he scowled at me jokingly.

Grace came over and smoothed down my hair. “Take care, dear. Know that we miss you already and you’ll always be welcome back at the Academy.”

I pulled her into a hug. “Thanks for everything, Grace. I’ll miss your chocolate chip cookies the most.”

Grace smiled and stepped away. I crouched down to Pogo’s level. “Look after yourself, Pogo. And look after these guys for me, okay?”

“Of course, Miss Isabel. Don’t be a stranger if you’re ever in the neighbourhood,” the ageing chimp replied. It was funny how he was more of a father figure to me than Hargreeves was. I stroked the top of his head and rose to my normal level.

Then the only people I had to say goodbye to were Luther and Allison. This was the most awkward of my farewells. “Take care of yourselves,” I said to them woodenly. I really didn’t know what to say to them other than that.

To my surprise, Luther leant down and wrapped me in a hug. It was awkward and uncomfortable, but it really meant something to me. “You too, Isabel.” Luther said.

Then there was Allison. “I hope you take every opportunity you can,” I said to her. She had dreamed of being an actress since she was a little girl, but those dreams took a back seat when the Academy started going on missions.

“Thanks, Izzie,” Allison replied. It was the first time she had smiled warmly at me that I could remember, and I returned the smile.

I turned once more to Klaus. The others stepped away to give us a bit more privacy, knowing that he was the one I’d miss the most. “You know you could come with me, if you wanted,” I said to him.

Klaus grinned at me. “Nah, I’m okay here, Iz. Don’t worry about me, go and be with your family! You’ve always wanted more time with them. I’d just get in the way.”

I reached out to hold his hand. “You know that’s not true, Klaus,” I assured him.

He let out a breathy chuckle. “Iz, I know you feel bad for leaving. But I wouldn’t want you to stay if it meant you’d be missing out on time with your family. Go, be free, live your life! It’s okay to be a little selfish,” he replied, a comforting grin pulling at his lips.

Tears began to well up in my eyes. He was right; he was the only reason why I had stayed in the Academy for this long after Diego and Vanya had left. I hadn’t heard much from either of them, but I knew Vanya was much happier living in her little apartment on the other side of town teaching violin lessons to kids. Diego was another story. I think the last time I heard he was living at a gym, I believe. I could be wrong but…I think I missed him. Klaus and I had gone looking for him one day, but to no avail. We’d spent more time with Vanya at her place, and it was only because Vanya had said she’d keep an eye on Klaus that I felt a little more okay with leaving.

“I’m sorry!” I wailed quietly, throwing my arms around him tightly. Here I was going to do what I wanted to do with my life and yet, the guilt from leaving Klaus behind was eating me up. He had lost so much, gone through _so much_ , that it just didn’t seem fair to leave.

“It’s okay Iz. If I need you, I have your address and your house phone number. And a flight from here to Ireland isn’t that long if I really need you,” Klaus soothed, playing with the ends of my hair like he always did, and the feeling both calmed and steeled me.

“Just-just don’t do anything stupid,” I sniffled, wiping my nose with the sleeve of my black jumper.

“Without you? I wouldn’t dream of it,” he replied, cupping my face in his hands and placing a kiss on my forehead.

 _“Flight EYZ647 to Dublin, Ireland, has now started boarding. Passengers, please make your way to gate 55,”_ a tinny voice over the tannoy announced.

“Shit, I really gotta go,” I said, wiping my tears off my face. “I haven’t even gone through security yet.”

“Go,” Klaus said, placing his hands on my shoulders. He turned me towards the area that I could enter, but not return from once I did. There was a set of turnstiles in front of me that required me to scan my boarding pass to let me through. Once I did, there was no going back. There was a gentle push on my back from Klaus and my legs started moving on their own, like my brain was offline but my body was moving regardless.

I looked back at Klaus. “Is he here?” I asked.

Klaus looked to the empty space on his left. “Always,” Klaus replied. “And he knows what you would say to him. He’s just telling you to go.”

I smiled at the space Klaus was pointing to. If I thought really hard, I could picture Ben standing there waving me off. With shaking hands, I plucked my boarding pass from my passport and placed it onto the glowing green square that would read the barcode on it. The metal doors that prevented me from moving any further swished open as my boarding pass scanned true. I took a step through to the other side of the turnstiles, my black leather Blundstone boots entering the realm of no return.

I looked back over my shoulder to see everyone waving at me. Klaus was blowing kisses and nearly hit Luther up the face with his enthusiastic waving. I smiled sadly at them and waved.

“Shoes off and place your backpack on this tray,” an airport worker said as they handed me a plastic grey bin.

I walked further into the airport and out of sight from everyone sending me off. I was moments into a new life for myself, even if it did mean walking through a metal body scanner in my socks. Once I had rushed through security I half-ran in the direction of my gate. A lady in an air stewardess uniform glared at me when I found it, clearly unamused with my timekeeping.

“You’re lucky, Missy. We’re about to close the doors,” she said, chewing a large piece of gum obnoxiously and spoke with a thick New Jersey accent. I meekly handed her over my passport and boarding pass and, after a moment of surprise when she saw my date of birth compared to what I looked like, she handed them back to me.

After that, everything was a blur of sitting and watching movies and airplane food. What had not gone unnoticed was the gate number of my flight. Fifty-five, it had been, and the irony had not been lost on me.

At some point over the Atlantic Ocean, I watched as the sun began to rise. “Thanks for looking out for me today, Five,” I whispered, trying not to wake the man beside me who had taken up half of my chair as well as his own.

_The twenty-fourth of December, 2007: 8:09 PM._

_I stood once again in front of Five’s portrait. This painting had seen a lot over the years, standing vigil over us. “Hey Five. I don’t know when the next time I’ll see you will be. I’m just about to leave for the airport, so I wanted to say goodbye to you as well.”_

_I sighed and placed my backpack on the floor beside me. All my other belongings were in the foyer ready to go, packed into suitcases. “I feel bad for leaving, but I also feel like it’s the right thing to do. There’s so much I want to experience that I haven’t been able to before and well, this is my opportunity. The Academy just isn’t the same without everyone being here.”_

_“Izzie! We need to hit the road now, dear!” Grace said as she fixed the collar of her long, pink woollen coat._

_“Okay, I’ll just be a second!” I said back to her. I heard the footsteps of the others approaching the foyer, so my time with Five was running out._

_“Vanya and I are both gone now, so there’ll be no-one here to make you sandwiches or keep the lights on anymore if you find your way back. I don’t know if you ever will, but I’ve left you a note in your room with details on how to find me. If you come back and don’t tell me the very second you pop out of a Blink, I’ll make sure that you’ll wish you’d never come back,” I said with a light chuckle. I reached out to brush his cheek. “Take care, Five. Know that you haven’t been forgotten. I have faith in you, not matter how much I want to punch you in the face.”_

_I kissed the tips of my fingers and placed them over his heart. And then, I left the Academy behind._

_The twenty-fifth of December 2005: Flying home for Christmas._

I yanked my second (and last) suitcase off the revolving luggage conveyor. The last time I’d been on a place that wasn’t on Academy business was that fateful flight on my seventh birthday, and the result of that flight had been years of a life spent training for Hargreeves’ purposes. The result of this one? Freedom. A new life that was _mine_.

I walked out of the exit doors and into the ‘Arrivals’ wing of the airport terminal. Right there in the middle was my family, laden with balloons and banners and smiling faces.

“Izzie!” my Mum cried out when she saw me. The four members of my family were all there: my dad, with his salt and pepper hair and ginger-tinged goatee beard, my Mum, with her cropped brown hair and warm brown eyes, Louis, who was built like a bean sprout and had wild ginger hair, and Anna, whose curly brown hair had been plaited back into two Dutch braids on either side of her head. There was a messy homemade banner with the words ‘Welcome home, Izzie!” sprawled across it in varying colours of paint and fonts, and I beamed at them all, my face feeling like it would split in two if I smiled any more widely.

The life that Number Eight had led had been left behind in an American airport. The life of Isabel Reilly, on the other hand, was just beginning.

* * *

A/N: Side note - SEASON THREE Y'ALL!!! Please tell me you guys are as happy as I am with this news!!!!!!!! SO HYPED. Now, proceed with the rest of the author's note.

Hi everyone, apologies for this late update. Unfortunately, if you remember from my last update, I was being tested for COVID, and I tested positive for it. This completely knocked me and my family off our feet, and then after I recovered from COVID I was snowed under with schoolwork, so I just wanted to say how sorry I am for this late update. School is taking over my life, so please be patient with me regarding updates. COVID and schoolwork leave me permanently exhausted, but I’ll do my best for you guys!!

Again, thanks to everyone who has left comments and kudos, and who have bookmarked and subscribed to this story. It honestly means so much, and I always say that in these notes.

Please take care of yourselves guys, and hug your loved ones tightly. We’ll all get through this.

Song list:

Chapter title – No tears left to cry by Ariana Grande.

Basshunter – Now you’re gone.

Katy Perry and Zedd – 365.

Avicii ft Rita Ora – A little less lonely together.

Ed Sheeran – Photograph.

Queen – Another one bites the dust.

Mouse Rat – Bye Bye Lil’ Sebastian

The La’s – There she goes.

Chris Rea – Drivin’ home for Christmas.


	8. Lightyears Away

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A walk through time after Izzie leaves the Academy.

A/N: I know I said I wouldn’t put author notes at the start and end of chapters anymore, but just a forewarn: this chapter skips through a period of about six/seven years after Izzie leaves the Academy. The chapter pacing may seem a little choppy as a result, but just imagine this as the sequence of scenes in a movie that has a lot of time skips (if you know what I mean!). Enjoy the chapter, and keep your eyes peeled. That’s all I’m saying! Love y’all :)).

* * *

Chapter Eight: Lightyears Away.

* * *

_The fifteenth of January, 2010: Can’t mistake my biology._

“Pick a question from Section A and complete it. Number one: describe how antidiuretic hormone works in the kidney to prevent water loss or number two: compare and contrast the functions of the xylem and phloem in plants.”

“Ugh,” I groaned, “Annie, who literally gives a crap?”

My sister sighed loudly and shook the pack of A Level Biology questions at me. “You were the one who said you wanted to get your exam qualifications!”

“Yeah, but this is painful,” I moaned. “How can I love a subject so much but hate studying it?”

“If you want to study with me, fine. Just don’t complain about it when we actually study,” my sister said, returning her attention to her own work.

I got up from where I lay on her bed and wrapped my arms around her from behind as she sat on the chair at her desk. “Sorry Annie. I’m just not used to formal education.”

“What did they teach you in America?” she turned in her desk chair and asked.

“Nothing as normal as kidneys,” I said with a small huff of laughter. “How is it that I’m applying for university the same time my little sister is?” I asked Anna, who moved from her desk chair and sat beside me on the bed, bringing her laptop with her. The two of us typed away on our laptops and sitting on top of Anna’s bed, which had a wonderfully soft and fluffy duvet cover that I couldn’t help but repeatedly run my feet over.

“Isn’t it weird? But at the same time, it isn’t?” Anna asked, her face screwed up in concentration as she looked at her screen.

“Have you heard back from any of your offers?”

“No. I’d love to get into Queen’s University Belfast or Trinity College for medicine though,” she replied, punching away at her keyboard.

“Smart arse,” I mumbled playfully.

“I’ll tell Mum you used a bad word,” Anna sang at me.

I gasped dramatically. “No, anything but that!”

Anna laughed and closed down her laptop. She moved so she was lying on her stomach beside me. “Are you glad you stopped learning Chemistry?”

“Pfft, am I ever! That subject was one nasty mothertrucker,” I replied. “You’re the smart one, Annie.”

“Says the girl who learned four languages.”

“ _Forced_ to learn, and I was terrible at them. English is difficult enough as it is. I can barely speak a line of Spanish anymore, and that was my best language. Allison and Diego however…that’s a different story.”

“Allison’s that actress in that new rom-com right? What’s it called…it’s the one with Zac Efron in it…” Anna trailed off, deep in thought.

“Is it the one where she’s a city girl and moves to a small town to build her own hotel because she found her fiancé cheating on her?” I answered.

“No, that was her _other_ movie. Doesn’t Allison speak like, seven languages?”

“I think so. Diego learned five I think, but his Ancient Greek was _really_ something.”

“Good or bad?”

“Oh, they way he read Homer to us was majestic.”

Anna quirked her eyebrow at me. “You read Homer in the original Greek.”

“Ugh, every line,” I grumbled, “it was torture. I can still hear myself reciting it in my dreams. It was the only thing I learned in Greek.”

“Izzie, your life sounds crazy. You should write a book about it! You could earn millions,” Anna said excitedly.

I laughed at her. “Yeah, I don’t know how well that would go down with the others.” I replied, before being momentarily swept away by my thoughts.

“Why don’t you talk to them anymore?” Anna asked, tethering me back to reality.

I sighed deeply and readied myself for a long conversation. “It started when Five disappeared. Now he had been experimenting with time travel, which is extremely dangerous…”

And thus began the account of how the Umbrella Academy rose to fame and fell into misfortune. The only person I’d had regular contact with since leaving was Klaus, and we had promised to each other we would call and update one another with our lives on a regular basis. We spoke once a week at least, but there was no set rule for how often we spoke. The two of us were busy living our own lives now. It boggled my mind how two people could grow up in the same environment and lead polar opposite lives, because mine and Klaus’ lives were like night and day at this point.

The others had kind of fallen off the face of the planet, or their face was everywhere _on_ the planet (of course, this was Allison, who had left the academy a few months after I did and had experienced a meteoric rise to fame shortly after). There had been no word of Luther or Diego, and very little on Vanya, and it seemed like Klaus was living in a different city every other week (either partying or checking in and out of rehab in most cases).

I was worried about Klaus. I don’t think I’d ever stop worrying about him. There would always be that guilty feeling deep inside of my stomach when I remember getting on that plane and leaving him behind.

These years that I had spent with my family had been better than I could have ever imagined. There was such a joy and warmth in this house that the Academy lacked. Our house wasn’t much to boast over and the cars my parents drove weren’t flashy Cadillacs or Bentleys, but there was a love here that I hadn’t experienced in the States that trumped those things every time.

Louis was in his final year at Newcastle University in England after taking a placement year in Portugal. Anna and I were thinking of staying closer to home by studying on the island of Ireland. Anna was definitely the brains of the family, and was on course to get straight A*’s in her A Levels.

The two of us had studied together for our exams since she turned fifteen. She’d been a major inspiration to me to get qualifications after my time at the Academy. We’d done our GCSEs (yes, including a dread English Literature exam which I’d barely scraped a pass in, courtesy of an awful set of exam questions on _Pride and Prejudice_ that had completely flummoxed me) and AS Levels together and now we were studying for our A Levels. We both studied biology together, which was the only subject we shared. She had chosen to do the three sciences and maths, whereas I had chosen Geography, Religious Education and until recently, chemistry.

Therefore, Anna was the sibling I was closest with. During the summer when all of us were back in the house it was a sort of organised chaos. Of course, we had our fights as all siblings do, but they were my family. There was a deeper level of affection with them that I hadn’t had with the Hargreeves siblings.

And so there was me, applying to study biology at five different universities. It was a much quieter, mundane life than I had been used to, but I much preferred the normality of it.

* * *

_The twelfth of February, 2010: A jolly good fellow._

“Happy birthday to you!” the crowd of people sang out, some people more tone deaf than others. Night had fallen on the day of Anna’s eighteenth birthday (which was the twelfth of February). Mum and Dad had arranged a surprise birthday party for her and had invited all her friends. The back garden had been illuminated by several sets of fairy lights and Niall (who was home from university for the weekend) was playing ‘DJ’. In other words, he was playing songs out of a set of speakers from a couple of Spotify playlists.

Anna beamed as I brought out her cake from the kitchen. There was a large gold ‘18’ sign on the top of the large chocolate cake (her favourite, of course) and two large sparklers that were so bright they were close to blinding me. My little sister was stood there in a pair of black skinny jeans and a t-shirt but she had never looked more beautiful.

“Make a wish!” Mum said as the sparklers died out and she quickly stuck some candles on the top of the cake while Dad used a lighter to ignite them.

Anna closed her eyes and blew out her candles to the cheers of her friends. I handed the cake off to Mum so she could cut it into slices (which was a talent I lacked). I looked around at all of the people who loved my sister, and suddenly a wave of loneliness washed over me. While Anna went to high school, I went to a Further Education college for my studies. I thought to myself, if this were me celebrating my birthday, who would I invite outside of family? Of course, I would love to invite Klaus if he didn’t live so far away, but his was the only name that came to mind. Maybe Vanya too, but she had the same problem as Klaus.

Being out in the world with normal people had been a shock to the system. The first day I had attended class really outlined how stunted my social skills had become from being in the Umbrella Academy. Making friends was hard. What did people talk about? It certainly wasn’t about how to take down the Eiffel Tower or who had beaten up the most terrorists. While the Academy was a global thing, my years out of the limelight had proven beneficial. I wasn’t recognised for it here and if I was, it usually went along the lines of ‘hey, you look familiar, where do I know you from?’. The typical response to that was ‘I guess I just have one of those faces’.

Then there was the whole ‘not ageing’ thing. The one thing I was still thankful to Hargreeves for was that he had sent over prescriptions for my medicines when I had left the Academy. None of them could be picked up from a regular pharmacy but without fail, every month a package full of meds arrived at my house. One time where I’d seen a hair that had had accidentally ended up stuck to the envelope that looked distinctly like Pogo’s.

“Cake, sweetie?” my Mum asked, proffering a plate to me with a slice of cake on it.

“Thanks, Mum,” I said, accepting the paper plate from her..

She studied me intensely. It wasn’t the same way that Hargreeves had looked at us when he knew something was amiss, but it was in a mothering way. It wasn’t critical; it was questioning. “You okay Izzie? You seem a little tuned out.” She held out a fork for me to eat my cake with.

I thanked her and took the utensil. “I guess it’s just weird to be around my little sister and yet _I_ look like the younger one.” I admitted, a small bubble of shame popping in my chest.

Mum’s eyes hardened. The time we were separated from each other had been hard on both of my parents, but my mum had felt it the most and that became evident every time the Academy was mentioned. “We should have never sent you away,” she said harshly.

If I had a penny for every time I’d heard her or Dad say that in the years I’d been home, I would have a _lot_ of pennies. “Mum, we’ve been over this. You did what you had to do. I learned how to control my powers from someone who only saw me as a number. He had resources that you and Dad didn’t,” I replied softly, stroking her arm gently to reassure her, “and I’m here now. That’s what matters.”

Mum’s eyes grew misty. “It’s just – we’ve missed out on so much together,” she said, her voice trembling dangerously. These conversations always went the same way – the Academy was brought up, I told my parents it wasn’t their fault, Mum cried, I gave her a hug. So, like I had done so many times in the past when she got like this, I embraced my mum.

“These years I’ve been home with you all have been the happiest of my life,” I said, my voice mumbled as half of my face was in her jumper, “so let go of the guilt. I’m kinda sick of hearing about it,” I said with a light chuckle.

“You’re right,” she said, breaking the hug and sniffling suspiciously.

“Let’s celebrate Anna, okay?” I said and linked my arm in hers as Anna’s friends danced wildly in our back garden to some ABBA tunes.

* * *

_The seventh of April, 2010: Back when._

“I always forget how much stuff there is to watch on TV,” I said in wonder, staring at the screen. I was curled up on our living room sofa, wrapped up in a blanket on a strangely cold April night. Anna sat on the other end in her pyjamas and fuzzy purple dressing gown.

Anna popped a chocolate button into her mouth. “You guys seriously didn’t watch TV?”

“No, we didn’t. Or at least, not often. There’d be nights that we’d sneak out to the movies though. It was usually Klaus, Ben, Five and I who did it, but the others tagged along too. Five’s powers were really useful when you needed to sneak out, but when we went to sneak back in, sometimes he’d leave us high and dry on the street outside the house. Man, did we get in trouble some nights when we got caught. Sometimes Five would smirk at us from the stairs while we got out asses handed to us by Hargreeves.” I said, my voice taking on a slight dream-like tone as I reminisced.

“There was this one night we’d picked up donuts from this little coffee shop that we loved called ‘Griddy’s’ and Five got pissed at Klaus because he ate his peanut-butter and fudge donut. Five Blinked us all back into the house except him. Klaus ended up nearly falling into a dumpster when Ben opened a window for him to get back in,” I said, chuckling at the memory. I munched on a bowl of sweet-and-salted popcorn as ‘The Princess Diaries: The Royal Engagement’ rolled onto the screen. “But watching TV was looked down on. We only really watched it for the news, if Hargreeves was out of town, or we’d been given free time after dinner.”

“What was your favourite thing to watch when you could?” Anna asked me, the shade of her grey eyes fluctuating as the colours from the television screen did.

“Ooh, that’s a tough one. Sometimes Sir would let us watch a David Attenborough documentary and I loved that, but probably…hmm…oh, it’s between ‘Gilmore Girls’ and ‘Grey’s Anatomy’.”

Anna nodded at me and made a face. “That’s quite a range there.”

“Don’t pretend that you don’t aspire to be Meredith Grey,” I responded, poking her lightly in her ribs with my toe.

“It’s Cristina Yang, actually. Cardio’s my jam,” Anna said haughtily before promptly choking on her own spit.

The two of us erupted into laughter. “I wish I could have taken a picture of your face!” I giggled.

“That was a traumatic experience and you laughed at me!” she replied.

“Hey, you’re the one who’s gonna be a doctor, not me. You’ll get paid to care about people. They aren’t my thing,” I said, scrunching my face up in disgust at the thought of people.

“Our A Levels are coming up. Maybe once we’re in uni, we’ll find you a couple of solid friends,” Anna said, her voice comforting and determined.

“I’ve had no luck so far,” I exhaled defeatedly.

“Didn’t you say you went for coffee with some of your classmates last week?”

“Yeah, I went for _coffee_ with them Annie. It’s not like they invited me to go to Ibiza,” I scoffed.

“Progress is progress. You just need to stop being so socially awkward. If you acted like you did around me when you were talking to the people in your classes, they-”

“Would think I’m clinically insane and check me into a psych ward?” I cut her off.

She cocked her head in thought. “I mean, yeah, but that’s not the point. You just need to be more comfortable around people.”

“Yeah, kind of hard when you’ve grown up like I have,” I said snidely.

Anna let out a frustrated breath. “It always goes back to the Academy, doesn’t it? When something bothers you or doesn’t go right, you blame the Academy for it. Maybe you just need to start taking responsibility for yourself instead of blaming your past for it,” Anna said, an angry edge to her voice.

I sat up in response, irritation flowing through me like blood. “Annie, you don’t know how lucky you are to not have experienced what I did. How Hargreeves raised us was, what I can now see as, abusive. We were kids forced into a life of fighting just because we had superpowers.”

“Yes, and I understand that, but you aren’t there anymore Iz, not physically at least. It seems like this Hargreeves guy is still in your head.”

And she was absolutely right.

* * *

_The eighth of April, 2010: Moving on up._

The day after my conversation with Anna, class finished early. “And don’t forget to make more mind maps about the function of the kidney! It’s always a popular topic to throw on A Level exams, which I may remind you all, you are sitting them in four weeks!” The teacher droned on. It was well and truly exam season and last night had been a welcome reprieve for both Annie and myself from school work.

I stretched and groaned in my seat before packing away my things.

“Hey! You’re Isabel, right?”

I looked up from my backpack and saw a group of people standing there; two boys and one girl. It had been the girl that had spoken.

_“Yes, and I understand that, but you aren’t there anymore Iz, not physically at least. It seems like this Hargreeves guy is still in your head.”_

_“Relationships are for the weak! The only bond you need to care about is that of the Umbrella Academy.”_

Hargreeves’ voice clashed with my sister’s in my head. I usually only heard Hargreeves’ voice in social situations and, until Anna had pointed that out last night that he was in my head, I hadn’t really registered that his ideologies about people outside of the Academy were still in my head.

I shook my head to bring myself back to reality. “Yeah, that’s me.”

“I’m Jude,” the girl announced. Her hair was in a short neon pink bob and the black striped t-shirt she was wearing showed off arms covered in colourful tattoos, “the boys are Andy and Phil. We heard that you had put down Queen’s Uni Belfast as your firm choice for Biological Sciences?”

“Yeah,” I replied. Alarm bells started going off in my head. How did she know this?

_“Remain vigilant, always! Never let your guard down, Number Eight.”_

“We’ve done the same!” Jude said excitedly, her hair bouncing lightly. “There’s a group page for potential newcomers to the course going around online. We saw your name on it and thought it sounded familiar.”

“Oh,” I replied. The alarm bells promptly stopped.

“We were wondering if you wanted to hang out with us after class today?” the boy ‘Andy’ asked. He was tall with piercing blue eyes and a smile to charming that it made my legs unsteady.

I snapped back to reality. Hargreeves’ voice and philosophy still rang out in my mind. “I-I don’t know guys, sorry.”

“Oh, come on, it’ll be nice to get to know each other before starting uni!” Phil pushed gently.

Jude smiled at me in a way that made me feel at ease. Hargreeves’s face popped up in my head, but was then replaced by Anna’s. ‘ _Don’t be a pussy_ ,’ I heard her say.

I cleared my throat awkwardly and the words flew out of my mouth before I could stop them. “Yeah-yeah. That sounds nice. What were you thinking?”

* * *

_The tenth of September, 2010: Growing pains._

Mum placed the final box of my things into my room. “Oh, it’s just so much smaller than your room at home,” she sniffled, bringing out a tissue from her pocket.

“Mum, it’s student accommodation. Compared to some student houses this is like a five-star hotel,” I said as I unpacked some belongings.

It was all thanks to Annie. Her pointing out that Hargreeves was still in my head all those months ago had changed how I interacted with people. Jude, Andy, Phil, Annie and I had all managed to get into the same university and we had become such fast friends in that time. We’d also had a major stroke of luck and managed to snag rooms in the same living accommodation.

It was a few months short of three years since I’d left the Academy. So much had changed for me in that time. I had friends (not many, but that didn’t matter), I had actual qualifications and at the ripe old age of twenty I was about to embark on a rite of passage: entering university. I still looked like a fourteen-year-old girl, but I made up for my lack of physical maturity in my mental maturity. It definitely wasn’t my emotional maturity, that was still a little stunted.

Early into our friendship, Phil had figured out that I had been part of the Umbrella Academy. He’d been a big fan of the comic series that had been written about us when he was younger. Being a part of the Academy wasn’t something I could hide, and frankly there was no point in worrying about being recognised from it because the Academy had been public knowledge. It helped clear up a lot of questions they’d had about how I looked so young and was taking A Level classes with them when I was, in fact, older than them. It had become a running joke between all of us. They had thought I was some sort of child genius in their class, when really I was far from it.

“Hey, the Fresher’s fair is starting down at the main courtyard,” Phil said from the doorway, his broad shoulders nearly the same width as the doorframe. He, like my brother Louis, was a red-head. There was an uncanny resemblance between the two of them and when they had met during the summer they had automatically been coined as ‘The Twins’.

“Wonderful, let’s see how much free stuff we can get,” Jude said, joining Phil in the doorway.

“I’ll be with you guys in a second,” I said, “I need to say bye to Mum.”

Phil waved at Mum. “Hi, Mrs Reilly.”

“Phil, how many times do I need you to call me Jenny? ‘Mrs Reilly’ reminds me of my mother-in-law,” she replied with a shiver. While my mum’s parents had died before I’d left for the Academy, my dad’s parents were still around. My remaining grandmother was a bit…demanding, to say the least, hence my mother’s reaction.

“Sorry Mrs Re-I mean, Jenny,” Phil said with a nervous chuckle, “I’ll just close this door.” He tried to grab the handle but missed, stumbled, nearly fell, and then manged to swing the door closed. His height seemed to delay the time it took for his brain to signal to his limbs, making his co-ordination something to be desired.

“What a dork,” I laughed as the door slammed closed. I pulled out a stack of polaroids that I had picked up over the years. My use of the polaroid camera dated back to my days in the Academy. I held in my hands moments captured in film from over a decade of my life, ranging from pictures that featured Ben and Five to those that had Jude, Andy and Phil in the frame. The most recent pictures had been taken on our summer road trip around Ireland and a brief stay in Greece to celebrate getting into university.

“I know, right?” Mum agreed. Then her face turned sad. “I feel like we just got you back and now you’re leaving all over again.”

“Mum, we’ve been over this. I’ll come home on weekends and you’ll make me some food that’s actually got nutritional value. Annie and I will bring you so much washing you’ll wish we didn’t come home!”

Mum laughed. Dad had been at work and so hadn’t been able to see us off, which was sad but it couldn’t be helped. “I won’t cry.”

I rolled my eyes. “Mum, I’ve seen you cry at car commercials.”

“I have not!”

“Liar liar!”

“Okay maybe I have,” she admitted, comedically quickly. The two of us laughed and embraced. She kissed my forehead and held me tightly once more. “I swear if you end up with an STD-”

“Mum!” I protested. “These walls are _thin_!”

Mum laughed. “I’ll get out of here before I embarrass you anymore. Plus, I have to go embarrass your sister too!”

“Yeah, go annoy her,” I said, playfully pushing her towards the door. “I love you, Mum.”

“I love you too. Use protection!” she said, disappearing out of my room.

I let out a contented sigh and started hanging my polaroids on the wall above my bed. Life was good.

* * *

_The third of May, 2014, 1:26AM GMT: Chasing shadows._

Jude and I staggered out of the club and onto the slick pavement outside. The two of us were laughing about something that my alcohol-riddled mind couldn’t help but find desperately hilarious, and the two of us had our arms around each other to support the other. Rain poured down on us, but we were too drunk to care about getting soaked. The lights of cars were reflected in puddles that had collected in the dips of the concrete sidewalk. I could vaguely make out the thumping music of the club we’d left behind as we stumbled along the pavement in the direction of home. And yes, they had checked my I.D. multiple times before letting me in. It sucked looking like a sixteen-year-old when you were really twenty-three, but it was a common occurrence when it came to doing anything that required me to be over eighteen.

The two of us had finished our final undergraduate exam the previous day, whereas Andy and Phil still had one more to go. Jude had suggested a girl’s night for us to celebrate finishing our degrees and the boys would join us on another night out when they could. I had to admit, it was nice to blow off some steam. I had been so uptight and worked so hard these past four years that I kind of felt like I’d missed out on getting the ‘uni experience’ everyone hyped up so much because I’d been so focused on working hard and getting decent grades.

Jude, on the other hand, turned in assignments a minute before their due date and consistently got brilliant grades. If I didn’t love her so much, I’d hate her for that (and to be honest, a little part of me secretly did). It was the way it had been all my life; I worked my ass off just to be mediocre. I was fine with being mediocre most of the time, but there were moments that I wanted to be extraordinary. Alas, those were the moments when Hargreeves’s philosophy had crept back into my brain and so I suppressed them and squished them down in my brain.

Frankly, I was currently a lot more sober than Jude was. She was a big party girl and the textbook example of a social butterfly. We had often questioned how the two of us were even friends because we were so different, but as they say, opposites attract. I was a good listener and she was a talker, and that was the foundation of our friendship.

The two of us were moving in the right direction of our house, which was a twenty-minute walk from the club we’d just left, give or take a few minutes. From our current location there were two routes we could take to get home. There was the longer one that took us along a main road and a shorter one that took us through a well-illuminated park, and the gate to that park was coming up on our left. Some parts of the path were heavily forested, and others were not.

In my head, I had chosen to take the main road. Imagine my surprise when Jude pulled me sharply through the park gates. “Les-go this way,” she slurred, her eyes heavily lidded. A loud hiccup made its way from her mouth and into the cool night air. There was a smooth path made from multicoloured stone slabs that had streetlights lighting it up every ten metres or so, meaning that the whole path was bathed in a comforting glow.

If I’d been in my right mind, I would have grabbed her and frog-marched her out of the park. The park may have been well-illuminated but the main road was safer and more public. “Are you sure ‘bout this Judey?” I asked her. My feet were unsteady beneath me and the small heels I wore slipped on the wet pavement more than I would have liked. Rain had soaked through my black jacket and into the green silk mini-dress Jude had picked out for me, as she had informed me that green was my colour. I mean, how could a colour belong to me anymore than someone else? So confusing.

“Yesh, you’ve gotsa trus’ me,” she replied, pointing her hand forwards determinedly.

Thus, we walked. The two of us got about three-quarters of the way through the park and we could see the exit gates open up in front of us with no incident larger than Jude’s dress falling down dangerously low on her chest, causing is both to laugh uproariously. The trees provided some reprieve from the rain and we were lulled into a quiet, content state by hearing water splashing onto leaves and concrete.

Then, the lights went out.

The two of us straightened up and stiffened. It was like we had both become a little more sober because of the darkness. Unease and fear coursed through me which was only heightened by the effects of the alcohol. Jude’s hand found me and gripped it tightly. “Are you scared?” she whispered to me.

It was then I noticed that it hadn’t just been the lights in the park that had gone out; it had been all of the lights from nearby streets, and this made the uneasy feeling in my stomach increase tenfold and my muscles tensed almost painfully. With the night sky as cloudy as it was, not even the Moon’s glow would be able to provide us with some semblance of what our path should be. No cars passed near us, which would have been helpful because of the illumination their headlights would have given us.

Something was going on. Something I didn’t like the feeling of. I conjured a ball of electricity in the hand that didn’t hold Jude’s and that gave off a small amount of whitish-yellow light, enough so that we could see a few steps in front of us. It also filled me with a sense of protection, both from the light it gave and the power I felt in my hand. “It’s probably just a power cut, Jude. Let’s get home before my mascara starts to run,” I said calmly, trying to reassure her as my heart pounded against my ribs. I would be able to protect myself in the case that we were in danger, but it was Jude that I was scared for. In fight-or-flight situations, she was a flier. I turned to see her face and while I couldn’t see it fully, I saw that she was apprehensive.

She was the one who started walking. We’d seen the exit and knew the general direction of it, so we started to trot in that direction. She had longer legs than me and was better at walking in heels, so I felt like she was dragging me along behind her.

Then, the noises started. They were subtle, quiet noises that caused alarm bells to start ringing in my head. I could feel my pulse quicken and a cold sweat broke out on my rain-soaked skin. There were a lot of bushes and shrubbery lined with bark banks along this part of the path, and the path narrowed to the point where only three people could walk side by side without walking into wayward leaves and branches. During the daylight, this area was beautiful and intimate because of how narrow it was, but now it was the perfect hiding place for someone to jump out on us.

A branch cracked to my right. Leaves rustled in the windless night. Bark crumbled and squelched in a way that sounded like someone was standing on it. Even Jude knew that there was someone there judging by how she gripped my hand and her breathing quickened.

“Izzie?” she asked me apprehensively. Her voice trembled.

“Whatever I tell you to do, promise me that you’ll do it, okay? No questions asked,” I murmured to her out of the corner of my mouth.

“I don’t want to leave you,” she replied shakily.

“Jude, just do it!” I snapped at her in as low a voice as I could muster.

There was a moment of hesitation before she nodded. “Okay,” she replied.

The rustling got closer. “ _Run_ ,” I whispered to her. I threw her hand from mine and she took off towards the gate as I sent power into my other hand. I held both hands out in front of me and turned around as a man leapt from the bushes. The light my hands generated let me make out a semblance of his appearance. He didn’t have any particularly noteworthy features, a round face, shaved head and a nose that curved in a way that showed it had been broken at some point, but it was the gun in his hand that drew my attention. His suit was dirty from soil and the fabric puckered in places from catching on sharp twigs, and his eyes were covered by goggles. If I had to guess, they had night vision properties.

“Who are you, and what do you want?” I asked in an even voice. There was a slight shake to it which was the only betrayal of my fear.

The man clicked the safety off his gun. The light in my hands grew slightly in response. “We’re not really here for you. You’ll be a nice introductory piece to our collection, but we’re here for _him_ ,” he answered mysteriously.

There was more rustling and crackling as shadows moved out into the open. Six people surrounded me on the narrow path, all dressed like the other guy, right down to the goggles over their eyes and cut of their suits. I didn’t even have the time to identify if they were male or female before the one who had spoken moved quickly towards me. I raised up my hands and prepared to unleash a deadly amount of electricity on him, but there was a sharp sting in my neck. I felt like I’d been doused in icy cold water as a numbing sensation spread rapidly through my system. I’d been injected with some sort of paralytic agent, and I cursed inwardly for having been stupid enough to leave myself open to attack.

Needless to say, my Academy training was a little rusty.

Electricity crackled in my palms and bolts shot out from them, hitting at least two of them in the chest. This drug worked quickly and it felt like everything was happening in slow motion. My limbs felt heavy before going numb. I put all of my concentration into staying on my feet, but eventually the muscles failed and I crashed to the ground with a grunt. My face landed sideways on the path and into a small puddle, blurring my vision as I couldn’t move my eye out of the water because of the paralytic raging in my system. The unmistakeable taste of iron filled my mouth, as the fall had made me bite harshly into my lower lip. Brown curls became heavy with water and straightened against the concrete, plastering themselves to the path. Within seconds of getting hit in the neck, all I could move was my eyes.

Arms went under mine and lifted me roughly. I was held up and suspended limply by two of the guys in suits. Try as I might, not even a single volt of electricity could be generated from my arms right now. I’d never even tried to conduct it through my neck or face before (because I wasn’t an idiot, I didn’t want to end up brain dead), but right now I was weighing up whether that would be a viable option to get me out of this situation.

It wasn’t.

Time ticked on and my body remained immobile. “What’s taking him so long?” one of them, a female, complained loudly. The four who weren’t holding me were gathered behind me, and so I couldn’t see them past the bodies of the people holding me up.

“Just wait, he’ll be here,” a male voice said determinedly.

“Maybe your intel was wrong?” another male voice asked.

“The Handler’s reports are never wrong. The Asset will do anything for those listed in the file she’s written about him, and that includes all of our targets. This one is just the weakest link,” a female voice answered. From her tone, I could guess that she was the ringleader.

Minutes went by in silence. Rain continued to patter against the ground and run down my face. It blinded me by running into my eyes and irritated them as it mixed with my mascara. Despite being numb from the toxin, I could feel the muscles and tendons in my neck aching from the poor positioning of my head, crying out to be able to work again and support it.

A frustrated groan broke the quiet of the night. “Ugh, what is taking so long? It’s pissing down out here!” a male voice protested.

“We stick to the mission. We took a vow to take them down, and tonight we’ll take down two of them,” the leader replied obstinately. All of this was just confusing me. They were clearly waiting for someone to show up, but who? And why were they talking about this person like they were certain they’d come for me? I wracked my brains to think of who, but to no avail. I was getting the vibe that they knew about the Academy. Maybe I’d wronged them at some point, and they were looking for revenge? Or perhaps I was bait for a much bigger fish – maybe Hargreeves was their target? But then again, why would he come for me, or know that I was currently in danger?

Seconds after the words had left the leader’s mouth, there was a zapping, crackling noise that split the silence mightily and a bright flash of light from behind me. I heard the drawing of guns and the two people who were holding me up spun around and brandished their firearms. They didn’t drop me, they held me up like some kind of trophy, like I was a prized kill or prisoner for someone to observe.

“I told you he’d come!” the leader said.

A much more sinister weapon was cocked. “What a cheap trick to use,” a new voice declared. They sounded almost fed up with this situation. It definitely belonged to a male and confidence coated his words, like he wasn’t fazed by this situation in the slightest.

“It worked, didn’t it?” the leader asked. I wished I could look up and see what was going on, but my body wouldn’t comply with my wishes.

“You’ll be sorry that it did,” the new voice chimed. His voice was smooth and unbothered, but there was a quiet rage in it. There was something almost…familiar about it. How did I know this voice? “If you seriously don’t think I’ve known about your little cult from the outset, you’re less intelligent than I give you credit for.”

Someone let out a frustrated growl. “How did you find out?”

A cocky laugh rang out from the newcomer. “It wasn’t exactly difficult. When you know the Commission as well as I do, few things pass you by.”

There was a sinister bark of laughter. “Six of us, against one of you? I like our odds,” the leader said. I heard the rustle of fabric as armed arms pointed in the same direction.

“Let’s kill him and get this over with,” the person on my right said quietly to the person on my left. A gunshot rang out and rattled my eardrums painfully. I was dropped unceremoniously to the ground and fell on my side, the same side that I’d fallen on after being injected with the toxin, and couldn’t do anything to stop my head from banging against the concrete. The gunshot coupled with the bang to the skull dazed me and all I could hear was a single, high pitched note and my vision was hazy. I couldn’t see much from where I lay on the ground but I watched in horror as one of the men in the blue suits crashed to the ground next to me, a hole blown straight through his skull and his brains leaking out around him like they’d been put through a blender. I was sure that I screamed, but the world was muted to me. There were flashes of light, but I couldn’t tell where the source of it was.

There was a slight tingling sensation in my legs. I tried to move my foot and it twitched weakly in response. This was a good sign as it meant the toxin was wearing off. I could start to feel the cold wetness of the ground beneath my fingertips as my body began to thaw. I tried to generate some current, but what I managed to produce wouldn’t even zap a fly. My vision was steadying and the hearing in my ear on the opposite side of my head from when the gunshot rang out was starting to return.

From when I told Jude to run until now, it had only been about ten minutes. Nine of them were when I’d been held as ‘bait’ for whoever this group of people in blue suits had been looking for. I willed my foot to move again and this time it moved more freely. The thawing process was getting faster and, albeit unsteadily, I got on my hands and knees and pushed upwards so that I was standing. Parts of me were still thawing but at least now I could try and defend myself.

Except, I didn’t need to anymore. I summoned a small ball of energy to my hand and saw five bodies strewn across the path in varying degrees of injury. Blood gushed from wounds, eyes stared blankly into nothing, chests no longer rose and fell. They were all dead, bar the leader. Seeing this combined with the alcohol in my system made my stomach churn violently and I vomited into the nearest bush. It wasn’t like this was the first dead body I’d ever seen, but I had hoped to never see another one in my lifetime. Life was cruel in that sense. My throat stung from regurgitating my stomach contents and some dripped down my chin and into the silk of my dress. Abrasions lined the exposed skin of my legs, but that was the least of my worries right now.

Just within the range of light my hand was giving off was the leader of this so-called cult. She was down on her knees, begging for her life. “Please don’t kill me, we didn’t mean any harm!” she shrieked as I saw the barrel of a gun pointed in her face.

“The whole mantra of your cult speaks otherwise, so don’t even try and lie to me,” the male voice replied plainly. Whoever he was, they had counted on him showing up to save me. They’d obviously been right, but who could it be? Was I being really thick because I didn’t know? “Just tell me one thing,” the man said, kneeling down to speak to her face to face as his bent knees came into view. His features were obscured from me, but I had a feeling that I knew him somehow, “was this The Handler’s work?” There was a dangerous edge to his question, like the answer she would give was extremely important to him.

I heard her breath tremble as she opened her mouth to answer him. “No, it wasn’t. We got the information on your weaknesses from the file she has on you, though. You should be careful with who you trust with that kind of information, especially considering the number of enemies you’ve made over the years.” As she spoke, her voice regained confidence instead of merely fearing the man in front of her. From the looks of things, her death was inevitable.

The male voice scoffed and raised himself back up to his full height. “Weaknesses? She thinks that _I_ have _weaknesses_?” He said disbelievingly.

The woman surprised me by laughing, but it was a humourless laugh. “We all have weaknesses. You seem to have at least seven of them. How does it feel? That you, ‘The Asset’, the greatest assassin in the Commission’s history with a kill list that a field operative would _die_ to have, has a list of pressure points that we successfully exploited?” It was the woman’s turn to be cocky now. Whoever this ‘Asset’ was and whoever they worked for, it was bad news.

I couldn’t stop replaying the images of the bodies that surrounded me. One should never have the experience of looking at someone’s head and being able to see through it. I stumbled slightly as my leg muscles got used to working again when I tried to stand. This drew the attention of the woman and the mysterious man who was confined to the shadows. She looked at me and then back to the man with a knowing smirk on her face. Blood was smeared around my mouth from the chunk I’d bitten out of my lip when I had fallen. 

“Do you have the _balls_ to do it?” she asked him boldly, leaning up to press her head against the barrel of the gun the man had fixed on her. “Do you have the balls to show her what you _truly_ are? This monster you’ve become? Because you like it, don’t you? You like being the master over who gets to live and who doesn’t. You _like_ the power, you crave it, you like feeling like _God_.”

The man chuckled. “I’m just good at my job.”

He pushed her to the ground with his foot so vehemently that she lay flat on her back. Before she could say or do anything more, a bullet tore through her forehead with an ungodly amount of force. I couldn’t, and wouldn’t, get the image of her head exploding out of my thoughts; it just kept replaying over and over again on a sick loop. Her blood mingled with the blood and rain that coated the path in some sick puddle of red and chunks of grey matter. Bile rose in my throat again, but my stomach was close to empty so very little was brought up. I coughed and spluttered as stomach acid burned my throat again and the light in my palm flickered out.

I wiped my mouth on my sleeve. The man was still standing were he had been when he’d killed the leader, his gun drawn and his unoccupied hand tucked casually into his trouser pocket. How could someone take so much life and act like he’d just gone out for a regular walk in the park?

“How do I know you?” I asked shakily as rainwater flowed in rivulets down my face. I assumed the best fighting stance I could as my muscles continued to regain function. I once again summoned energy to my palms, but my power was weak and I was running out of stamina to keep my hand lit up. The slightest hint of light illuminated his face for the barest of seconds, and any feature I managed to see was so brief that I couldn’t recall it. That was, except for the colour of his eyes: they were blue, or at least I thought they were. It was hard to tell with the brief glance I got.

The man stayed silent. “It would be best if you tried to forget what happened here tonight. These bodies, all of this evidence…it’ll be gone before you even get the chance to phone the police.”

Water streamed into my mouth. “Six people dead and no-one discovers them?” I asked, spitting out the rainwater that had entered my mouth.

“A drunk girl in a park tells the authorities about a murder they can’t find any evidence of? That’ll go down well,” the man sneered. I still hadn’t been able to determine any of his features as he almost melded with the shadows and I wasn’t strong enough to produce enough light to see him. “I’ll repeat, because it doesn’t seem to have sunk in: get out of here and forget. You were just a bystander who got mixed up in some cult’s plot.”

My breathing started to quicken. Panic was starting to set in. “Those people-they said that I was bait for you. Who are they? And more importantly, how do I know you?”

“That doesn’t matter, Izzie! God, all of these years and you still just won’t _listen_!” the man burst out in a near shout.

Anger bubbled up inside me, as well as a shock of sick surprise at him saying my name. “How do you know my name, and why won’t you answer my damn questions?! Show yourself!” I demanded, my quivering limbs detracting from how authoritative my voice had sounded.

The man sighed. If I heard right, he almost sounded sad. “No.”

“Why the hell not?!” I retorted heatedly.

The man took a deep, quiet breath. “Because you won’t like what you find out.”

As quick as a flash, the hand he had in his pocket flicked out and there was yet another stinging sensation in my neck. For the second time tonight, I reached up and pulled out a small dart as my body began to shut down again. My vision blackened as the ground came up to meet me once more. The last thing that registered in my brain before I lost consciousness entirely was the man saying these words to me, and even at that I could have imagined it.

“Sorry, Bella. This is for the best.”

* * *

_The third of May, 2014: 9:38AM: About last night._

“Izzie? Izzie?” a voice drawled out, waking me from my sleep. I groaned and managed to open one eye to see Phil standing by my bed. I was in my student house, tucked up in my room and wearing a set of cosy pyjamas. How did I get here?

I raised my hand to my head. It was pounding so badly that I could feel the blood pulsing through my brain, and it caused all of my thoughts to jumble up like spaghetti. “Ow,” I moaned.

Phil pressed two white pills into my hand. “Here, they’ll help with the hangover. Andy’s already making you and Jude some of his hangover cure,” he said while handing me a glass of water.

“Thanks,” I mumbled before putting the pills in my mouth and chasing them down my throat with the water. As soon as the water touched my lips, a burning thirst started in my mouth and I drained the glass’s contents easily.

Phil laughed gently at this. “Rough night?” he asked.

“You could say that,” I said, cautiously pushing myself up out of bed so my back was resting against the headboard, “my head feels like a washing machine.”

“Yeah, Jude said last night got pretty wild. It’s a good thing you met that nice guy in the park, though,” Phil said.

I sat up a little straighter at this. “What guy?”

Phil’s brows knitted together. “Yeah, the guy who dropped you home after Jude thought there was a serial killer in the park bushes and ran off?”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” I told him honestly, “the last thing I remember from last night was leaving the club.”

Phil laughed, but the noise reverberated through my brain painfully and I moaned as it ached. “Sorry, Iz. Jude’s really sorry for leaving you, but she’s glad the guy brought you home safely.”

“Who is this guy you keep talking about?” I asked him irritably. Flashes of memories from the previous night popped into my head, but it was difficult to tell which were real and which were scenes that I’d dreamed about.

Phil held his hand up in offence. “I know you’re hung over Iz, so I won’t get annoyed at you snapping at me. But seriously, you can’t remember anything?” Phil asked concernedly.

I shook my head. “No. Did he leave a name or anything?”

Phil also shook his head. “He said he found you passed out in the park. You must have fallen or something, but apparently you told him your address when he found you and he walked you home. Andy was still up studying when the guy knocked the door, but he didn’t get a good look at the dude because he was worried about you. You’re a lucky girl, Iz. If you’d been found by the wrong guy…” he trailed off and shivered.

I tried thinking about what had happened last night, but all my thoughts were jumbled. More flashes came back to me, but I was having great difficulty in discerning which were real and which were not. It was frustrating, like trying to find the right piece of string to pull that would untangle all the rest. Phil patted my leg and made his way to my door.

“Talk to Jude when you’re ready. She wants to apologise, but I don’t think you’re in the state to cope with all of the inevitable tears. She feels terrible, and because I’m a good friend I’ve listened to her. But I also really need to study, so I need to get back to that. I’m glad you’re safe, Iz,” he said from my doorway. Before I could say anything back, the door had closed and he was gone.

Jude apologised to me later that day. That was appreciated, but even when she recounted to me what had happened last night, something felt off. There was something big that I couldn’t place, but I couldn’t remember what. It was infuriating that there was such a large blank in my memory that I could only see flashes of.

In the end, long after the cuts on my legs had healed, I just gave up trying to remember.

* * *

 _The twenty-fifth of June, 2014: Read all about it_.

Four years of blood, sweat, and tears. And yes, there actually had been blood involved: my final year research project had given me plenty of paper cuts. There had been many tears and lots of hard work and many, many late nights, but it had all lead to this.

“Isabel Lillian Reilly,” my name boomed through the hall. I quickly adjusted my graduation robes before walking across the stage to receive my degree. I shook hands with the Vice Chancellor of my university and saw Mum and Dad clapping wildly for me as they stood up from their seats. There were a few cheers from my siblings and friends which died out as the next graduate crossed the stage.

I stumbled slightly as I came down from the stage, but it wasn’t because of the ridiculous heels Annie had insisted on me wearing. Standing with my family, wearing a suit in the most eye-watering shade of orange, was none other than Klaus. The rest of the ceremony was torture because I wanted nothing more than to go and give him the biggest hug. I did exactly that the second we were allowed to leave.

“Klaus!” I nearly screamed in excitement as the crowds milled around us. I squeezed him tightly in my arms.

“Wow, Iz. Didn’t think you’d become such a hugger,” he said, ruffling my hair. There were tiny leprechaun hats on the tie of his suit.

I whacked his hand away. “Hey! This needs to look good for pictures.”

Klaus beamed at me. “I’ve missed you so much.”

“Eh, I guess you’ve crossed my mind from time to time,” I teased, “how did this stay a secret? We talk every week, and you didn’t say anything.”

“To see your surprised face! You nearly fell off the podium when you saw me,” Klaus babbled.

I turned to my parents. “How did this happen?”

“Thank Annie, she managed to get in contact with Klaus and got him here. Consider him your graduation present,” my dad said happily.

“Thank you both,” I said to my parents and embraced them tightly. I then turned to my siblings. “Klaus, meet my siblings. Siblings, meet Klaus,” I pointed to each sibling and said their name to Klaus. “Louis is the red-head, and I guess you kind of already know Anna.”

Louis leant forward to shake Klaus’s hand. Klaus had met my brother for all of ten seconds and he was already making eyes at him. “Stop it, he’s as straight as hell,” I whispered out of the side of my mouth to him when they had turned their backs to us.

Klaus let out a groan. “Seriously? No fair.”

“I can point you in the direction of some good-looking gay guys here. My lab partner this year recently broke up with his boyfriend,” I suggested.

“Point him out,” Klaus said quickly, and so I pointed in the direction of a curly-haired blond in a dark suit. “Oh, he’s cute. Not so sure about the red loafers though.”

I rolled my eyes at him. “Same Klaus as always.”

“Just older,” he said.

“We should get a move on guys. Our dinner reservation is in half an hour and – what is taking so long?” my dad questioned irritably.

There had been a complete standstill in people exiting the hall. Above the noise of the people I could make out the sound of helicopter blades cutting through the air. Flashes of cameras illuminated the building. There was a rumbling sound and the crowd of graduates parted. People swarmed into the hall, outfitted with extremely expensive looking cameras.

Images of missions with the Academy flashed before my eyes. “We need to go,” I said, grabbing Klaus’ and Annie’s hands and we fought through the oncoming avalanche of people flooding into the building. My flight-or-flight reaction had been engaged and there was just something about what was going on that really didn’t sit well with me.

I dragged Klaus and Annie with me and prayed the rest of my family were behind me. I shoved through the crowd without caring about being rude or who I had to elbow.

“She’s really sorry about this,” I heard Klaus apologise on my behalf to someone.

“Excuse us!” Annie shouted while I bulldozed my way through the mass of suits and dresses and grad gowns.

We burst out into the sunlight. The brightness stung my eyes, but it wasn’t just the natural light that was blinding me.

“There they are!” I heard someone yell. I tugged on Klaus’s hand to get away from this place, but his feet were stuck firmly to the stone slabs beneath him.

“Izzie, look at them,” he said, pulling me back.

I looked out into the sea of cameras. The cameras flashed wickedly at me and I was reminded of our first mission with the Academy when we had stood on the steps of that bank that had been robbed. These people weren’t a threat in any real sense: they were the press.

“Mister Hargreeves, is it true that you and your siblings excluded your sister Vanya from everything?”

“Miss Reilly, how does it feel to be a replacement for Number Seven?”

“What is going on?” I muttered to Klaus.

Klaus was looking elsewhere. Outside of the hall I had graduated in was a large digital billboard screen. I had passed it many times on my way to class, but it was now that I paid it the most attention, as the BBC News was being broadcast and on it was Vanya’s face.

‘ _Read all about it: The truth comes about the Umbrella Academy’_ read the headline.

“Oh Vanya, what have you done?” I muttered as cameras clicked and flashed around me.

* * *

_The twenty-fifth of June, 2014: 6:19 PM._

“Could we get a comment from you about this?”

“No, you may not! Get off my property!” my dad said, slamming our front door in the face of yet another reporter.

Klaus and I were sat in the sunroom, which was linked to the kitchen, at the back of my house. Both of us were nursing drinks, something fruity and strong that Klaus had concocted. We sat in a silence that was punctuated only by Klaus’s nails tapping against the glass surface of the small table that separated our chairs, chips of baby-blue nail polish floating off his fingers.

“I can’t believe she actually did something like this,” Klaus said wistfully. There was a mysterious white powder on the tip of his nose that had appeared after a recent trip to the bathroom.

“Who would’ve thunk it?” I said tipsily. Some of my drink sloshed over onto my graduation dress.

“I bet the others don’t like this either,” Klaus said and sniffed loudly.

“How could they? From what I’ve heard she tore us to shreds in that damn book.”

Klaus took a long sip of his drink through a straw. “Have you heard anything from Anna?”

I shook my head. “No, but my friend Jude managed to snag a copy of the book before it sold out. Anna’s going over to grab it now.”

“That’s it, if they knock on that front door one more time, I’m calling the police,” my dad thundered from the kitchen.

“Sorry about this, Dad. I was really looking forward to our fancy dinner,” I said.

Dad joined us in the sunroom. His suit was wrinkled from the day’s events and he had long since lost his tie. His face softened when he saw the state of Klaus and I. Klaus had also disposed of his tie and suit blazer and instead was sitting in a wingback chair barefoot with his white dress shirt open to expose a large part of his chest. There was a small ketchup stain on his shirt from our takeout dinner.

“It’s not your fault, sweetie. None of us were prepared for this.” He walked over and smoothed down my hair comfortingly.

“I just can’t get over how much media attention this is getting,” I replied.

“The Academy was famous for a while there. Everyone wanted to know about it because it was so mysterious. This book is a window into what it was like there for Vanya,” Dad explained.

Klaus let out a humourless huff of laughter. “It sounds like didn’t hold back in what she truly thought of us.”

A seed of anger exploded inside me. “How could she not have given us a heads-up about this?” I fumed.

“Well, we haven’t exactly been the best at staying in contact with her,” Klaus mused, “when was the last time you talked to her?”

I had to think for a moment. “Geez, it must be well over two years ago now,” I considered.

Klaus held his hand out as his point was proved. “Exactly.”

I fiddled with the drink in my hand. “Where we really that bad to her, Klaus? Do we deserve what she’s saying about us?”

A slurping sound came from the bottom of his straw as his glass was drained. He pouted at it like it had disappointed him. “How are we supposed to know? This is Vanya we’re talking about. Apart from Five, did any of us ever make a real connection with her?”

His words cut into me. “I thought I did,” I answered. A wave of guilt and confusion washed over me.

“Yes, but that was because of Five. If it hadn’t been for him, she wouldn’t have had anyone. Five connected the two of you and once he zapped off to God-knows-where, that connection died.”

My brows knitted together in confusion. “Really?”

Klaus giggled, the tinkling sound standing in contrast to the dark mood that had been in the room. “Izzie, I love you, but you can be so dense. And it wasn’t just you who was responsible for Vanya, it was all of us. My father was a horrible, horrible man and that’s where most of her resentment has to lie. But maybe, Vanya thought we could have done more.”

“How? Bring her on missions? Make her train with us when we obviously had the advantage?” I snarked back.

“Izzie, that’s not what I’m saying. What I am saying is that she obviously felt like we could have done more for her. She was _abused_ by my father, we all were, but she had it the worst,” he replied calmly, a hint of pleading in his tone.

“We were _kids_ , Klaus. None of us could stand up to your father,” I reasoned.

He shrugged calmly. “That’s your opinion, not Vanya’s.”

I deflated at this. Dad stroked my hair once more and left the room. He seemed to know that Klaus and I needed to duke this out. “Just because we had superpowers didn’t mean we were superhumans. We all saw how Vanya was treated and…we did nothing.” I stated, stifled by the implications of my words.

Klaus looked kindly at me. “Despite what she says in that book, there were times she did have with us that were good, and we know that. She might only remember the bad things, but we did our best as kids to include her. It wasn’t our fault she didn’t have powers, it wasn’t our fault she couldn’t come on missions and was left out because of that! There’s no point in thinking about what we could have done. We can’t change the past.”

I let his words sink into me. I took a deep, calming breath. “You’re right Klaus, what’s done is done. But I would have at least liked a phone call about it first. I think she owed us that.”

Klaus got up and disappeared into the kitchen. “More of the Klaus special, madam?” he said. He held up a bottle of alcohol in each hand.

“It’d be rude not to,” I replied. “We’ll need it for when Anna comes back with the book.”

I heard the front door to the house open and close quickly. “Dad, there’s more paparazzi outside! Pretty sure I hit one of them with my car,” I heard Anna say.

“Aren’t you a doctor? I thought your whole deal was not to hurt people,” I shouted so she could hear me.

“Not a doctor yet, Iz. And I only nudged them,” she fired back.

I let out a laugh. “We’re in the sunroom!” I called to her.

“That’s it, I’m calling the police,” I heard my dad say resignedly.

Anna appeared in the doorway to the kitchen. She held the dreaded book in her hand. “Package secure,” she said, flopping down on the floor beside my chair and handing me the book over her shoulder.

I ruffled her hair affectionately. “Thanks Anna-Banana.”

I went to open the book. “Wait!” Klaus yelled from the kitchen. “Don’t start without me.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, dear,” I replied and instead flipped the book over to read the blurb. As I read the blurb, I could feel the blood drain from my face. “Klaus?”

“Mm?”

“You might need to make up a big batch of the Klaus Special. I’ve a feeling that reading this is gonna need a lot of alcohol to get us through.”

Klaus paused in mixing up two glasses of his brightly coloured special drink. “How big of a bowl do I need?”

“As big as you can find,” I replied, staring down at the picture of Vanya. Could I have done more for her?

“I’m sorry, Vanya,” I whispered to the picture, “I’m so sorry.”

* * *

_The twenty-sixth of June, 2014: 2:52 AM._

The three of us laughed at what Vanya had written. Klaus and I were officially beyond drunk and Anna was edging on tipsy, but she was the only one of us sober enough to read.

“So in summary,” I started, laughing as I spoke, “Klaus’s redeeming quality was that he wasn’t as cruel to Vanya as the rest of us were and that I was only taken into the Academy to make up for her lack of powers.”

It was the kind of situation that you if you didn’t laugh, you would cry. We were well into the second half of the book by this point but there had been scathing remarks written about us within its pages. I didn’t know Vanya had it in her, and there was a part of me that was proud of her and another part that raged at her. Maybe it was an editor who had written it in or reworded what she had said to make the book more scandalous.

Klaus giggled. “You forgot how I was a substance-abusing, attention seeking whore with daddy issues.”

“You had Hargreeves as your dad, that’s just a given. He gave me daddy issues and he wasn’t even my father,” I retorted, sloshing more of my drink over my dress.

“I thought you two would get off lightly, but she really didn’t hold back,” Anna said, turning the pages of the book.

“The only one who she hasn’t crapped all over is Five,” Klaus said.

“Not even Ben was safe, and I thought that would’ve been a given seeing as he’s dead,” I replied, a little tone-deaf. 

“Ben is taking this pretty well actually,” Klaus said, turning his head to the side and staring into empty space.

“‘Is?’” Anna questioned.

“Annie, you know Klaus sees dead people,” I said in a creepy voice.

“Wait, so Ben is here?” Annie asked.

“Oh yeah. He was so excited to see Izzie graduate. Shame about how the day went,” Klaus replied, taking a sip of his drink.

Anna looked freaked out, her eyes bulging from her head. “So how does it work? Can you decide which people you see?”

Klaus swallowed another mouthful of alcohol before answering. “Ben’s the only permanent resident around here,” he replied, pointing at his head and making a wobbly circle around it.

Anna smiled wickedly. “Dude, that is so cool.”

“Of course, you find that cool. You’re literally gonna be someone who holds the power of life and death in their hands, you Cristina Yang wannabe,” I slurred.

“Imagine it though. You could talk to any dead person. Like, need help passing a test? Talk to a dead person who knows the answers. Want to chat with a famous dead celebrity? Completely possible!” Anna crooned. Her eyes were starting to droop from the alcohol.

“It’s all fun and games in theory. When you can’t stop seeing and hearing the dead because you don’t know how to switch it off, you end up like me. All cuckoo and drugged up,” Klaus replied in a surprisingly sober voice.

Anna proceeded to look embarrassed. “Sorry, Klaus. I didn’t mean to offend you or-”

“Pssh,” Klaus waved her off, “it’s all good, you weren’t to know. I still don’t understand my power!”

“I don’t think any of us who were in the Academy will,” I added, “how do you know the limits of powers that have never been seen before? How do you know that you’ve reached the peak of it? It’s not like we have a baseline to compare ourselves to.”

“Your power is electricity, right?” Anna asked me.

“Yessir,” I garbled out.

“But you’ve only ever used it as a weapon?”

I set down my drink. “Where are you going with this Anna?”

“Well, you’re basically an infinite source of electricity. There’s a climate crisis going on. Why not tap into that?”

“What, become a renewable source of energy? So, there’d be wind, water, sun and Izzie?” Klaus mocked.

“Possibly,” Anna shot back irritably. There was an aloofness to Klaus and a seriousness to Anna that I noticed over the course of the night had caused their personalities to clash.

“You kind of have a point, Annie. I’d never thought of that before,” I mused.

Klaus blew a raspberry. “Probably because you were never taught your powers had any other purpose than to fight with.”

Anna stood up as if the sun of realisation had dawned on her. “There is so much good you could do with your power, Iz. Think about it. Free electricity! You could bring a lot of power to a lot of people; you could take over the renewable energy field! And don’t get me started on the damage you’d cause to the oil industry. Think about the marine lives you could save by reducing our dependence on fossil fuels!”

I looked at her sceptically. “Annie, I’m only one person. There’s only so much I can do. How do you think the oil companies would react to me threatening their business? I’d end up dying in ‘mysterious circumstances’ because some billionaire can’t handle that there’s a better way to power the planet.”

Annie deflated slightly. “I’m only suggesting that there is a lot you could do with your power. Just think of the possibilities!”

I chugged the remaining contents of my glass and set it down. “Okay, that’s enough talk. Let’s see what Vanya’s written next.”

“Oooh, yes please!” Klaus exclaimed, clapping the tips of his fingers together.

Anna rolled her eyes. “Okay, next chapter. We’ve just got past the part where Five has disappeared. This one is titled…oh this is gonna be good,” Anna said in dark excitement.

“What’s it called?” I asked.

“It is titled ‘Luther and Allison’,” Anna announced in a formal voice with a twinkle in her eye.

Klaus threw his head back and let out a bark of laughter.

* * *

_The thirtieth of June, 2014: Airplanes. 9:28 PM_

The last time I had stood in an airport with Klaus he had told me to go. Now, the role had been reversed.

“I don’t wanna go back,” Klaus pouted, “your house smells nice and has lots of food.”

I patted him on the back consolingly. “I know you do. You’re welcome to stay,” I lied through my teeth. The truth was, Klaus was a lot to deal with. Anna had clashed with him on numerous occasions and he’d only lived with us for a week. He was also eating us out of house and home. How he stayed as skinny as he did both amazed me and made me jealous. If I’d eaten half as much as he had these past few days, I would be the size of my house. Mum loved having Klaus around, but if he stayed any longer my parents wouldn’t be able to afford anything apart from Klaus’ food bill.

“Nah, it’s been fun but it’s time to head home. I’m just going to miss you, that’s all.”

“I hear Vanya’s book is doing really well in the States right now, so you never know, maybe you’ll be able to ride on the back of her wave of fame,” I shrugged.

“I like how you think, Iz,” Klaus said, tapping the side of his head. He looked over his shoulder to the Departures lounge. “I really got to get going though.”

“You sure you’re not gonna get caught with anything illicit on you?” I asked lowly.

“Darling, the only thing I’m going to be arrested for is for being too dang sexy,” he said confidently, striking a pose in his leather pants and green tie-dye sweater.

“It’s the eyeliner that sells it for me,” I quipped.

“You’re too kind,” he replied with a slight bow. He pulled me into another hug.

“Please don’t wait six years to come and visit me again. This week has been so much fun,” I said.

“You can always come visit me,” Klaus suggested.

I shrugged non-committedly. “Eh, I’ll see how my masters goes.” The real story was that I didn’t really want to head back to the States. There were too many memories there.

Klaus fidgeted with his passport. “I’ll call you when I land,” he said, breaking away from me.

“You’d better,” I replied.

“Kisses,” he said as he walked away, blowing kisses at me. I ‘caught’ one of them and placed it over my heart.

And just like that, he was gone, obscenely tight leather pants and all.

* * *

A/N: Oooooo, who could the mysterious character that swooped in and saved Izzie be???? Dun dun dun!

Hi guys, sorry once again for the late update! But the new update is here, and I really hope that you enjoy it. I also hope you're all looking forward to Christmas! Please stay safe over Christmas and look after your loved ones.

My question for you guys in this update is who do you prefer: Five or Klaus? I love writing both of them, they are very different characters. I hope they sound like their characters when I write them!

Thank you all for leaving kudos, subscribing, commenting, bookmarking and all the other things that you can do with archive of our own! Your support and all of your comments, they really do keep me going with my writing and hopefully neither the Christmas break is coming up I'll be able to get more updates out, which is always exciting.

Shout out to PrimRose, Le_M and welp.i.tried for their comments on the previous chapter. It’s good to know I have people supporting me in the comments section and engaging with what I write!

Song list for this update:

Chapter title: ‘Light Years’ by The National.

‘Can’t mistake my biology’ by Girl’s Aloud.

‘Back when (we had nothing)’ by BANNERS.

‘Moving on up’ by M People.

‘Growing Pains’ by COIN.

‘Chasing shadows’ by Sam Kelly, The Lost Boys.

‘About Last Night’ by The Shires.

‘Read All About It, Pt. III’ by Emeli Sande.

‘Airplanes’ by B.o.B ft. Hayley Williams.

Love you guys! SunnySci :)).


	9. Jerusalem Bells

_Chapter Nine: Jerusalem Bells_

* * *

_The twenty-eighth of May, 2015: Space bound. 7:23 PM._

I flopped down onto the living room sofa after a long day doing experimental work in university. Since Klaus’s visit, I had spent my summer travelling before starting my masters. I had moved in with Jude, Andy and Phil, and since we had lived together ever since the second year of our undergraduate degree, we knew that living together worked for us. Phil and I were tackling our masters and Jude was working for a pharmaceutical company, whereas Andy had taken the plunge into the doctorate world.

“I hate lab work,” I whimpered as Jude made fajitas in the adjoining kitchen.

Our house wasn’t much, but it was warm and had enough bedrooms for all of us. The kitchen was modern and all of the cabinets were a shiny white colour with silver handles. An American-style fridge sat in the corner beside the door that opened into our small back garden. There was a large window over the top of the sink that overlooked that garden and brought in a lot of natural light to this living space. The adjoining living room had two black leather sofas that had worn over time but were still comfy enough to nap on. There was a television screen on top of a slightly rickety stand that directly faced the sofa I was lying on. The TV was on and the current program was about to finish to make way for the BBC news at 7:30 PM.

We lived in a predominately student area and our rooms were decent sizes so we could all have double beds. I took the bedroom in the attic of the house seeing as I was the smallest. The attic had a slanted roof which meant that even I had trouble not bashing my head off the ceiling at points. Phil nearly gave himself a concussion one night after a deep, meaningful chat about life in my room, so he was eternally grateful that he didn’t have my room.

“You shouldn’t have chosen a biology masters, then,” she chided. The sound of sizzling chicken and the smell of spices wafted through the air.

“Ugh, what a horrible idea that was. I’ll be lucky to get a passing grade out of this.”

Jude tittered. “You’ll be fine, Iz.”

“No, I won’t,” I said with an exaggerated cry.

Andy walked into the room. “Andy, tell Izzie to stop crying about her masters,” Jude demanded from where she hovered over the cooker.

“Stop crying about your masters, Izzie,” Andy repeated obediently. He sat down on the other sofa and sighed contently with his hands behind his head.

“Another good date with Ella?” Jude asked cunningly.

Andy sighed happily. “This girl is something else, Jude.”

A point I should make about Andy is that he is a serial dater. He was a good-looking guy with a personality to match. In the years I’d known him, the longest he’d been single was five months.

“Mmm-hmm,” Jude sassily.

Andy sat up straight. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“I’m just sayin’, you always fall too fast for people,” Jude commented.

Andy flicked his eyes to me. “Is that true?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Who and when you date is none of my business.”

Except, I wished it was my business. Ever since I’d met Andy, I had had a crush on him. I’d only told Anna about it because it was ingrained into me to keep things to myself (thanks, Umbrella Academy) and she had figured it out. It was nice to tell her and get it off my chest, but I had never acted on my feelings. I’d read way too many young adult novels to know that confessing feelings for a friend was a sure-fire way to alter a friendship, and I was content with what I had with Andy.

Plus, the last time I had feelings for a guy he had died, so…

“Fajitas anyone? I’ve made enough to feed the whole street,” Jude said.

“You never make enough food just for yourself,” Andy commented.

“Do you want food or not?” Jude said snippily. She wasn’t actually angry at him, it was just her trademark snappy banter.

“Yes please,” Andy replied meekly. He stood up and went to the kitchen to grab a plate. Jude had set out everything we’d need to pop into our fajitas on the kitchen table, the surface of which had been covered by an ugly floral protector. “Do you want me to grab you one too, Iz?”

I shook my head. “No thanks, Andy. You’ll make it wrong.”

Andy’s jaw dropped in fake shock. “How do you make fajitas wrong?”

I watched as he put chicken straight onto his tortilla. “ _That’s_ how,” I said derisively and pointed at the bread, “you need to layer on sour cream and salsa _before_ adding your chicken. Then you add your peppers and cheese.”

Andy stared at me dumbstruck. “That is _not_ how you make a fajita.”

“It’s the right way,” I countered.

“Nowhere in the fajita making handbook does it say that it has to be made a particular way.”

I raised my eyebrow at him. “Clearly you’ve been reading the wrong edition.”

“Oh yeah? When did the new one come out?” he said, dipping his finger in sour cream to Jude’s protests.

“Who raised you?” she scolded, slapping his hand away from the container of sour cream.

There was a wicked smile on Andy’s face and he advanced quickly towards me, brandishing his cream-covered finger at my face as he cackled menacingly.

“Andy, I swear to-”

Before I could finish there was a line of sour cream stretching across my face. I glared up at him. “You’ve just started a war,” I growled out.

Jude grabbed the dish of sour cream protectively. “Oh, this is a heckin’ no-no,” she declared while scrambling away from us.

I swiped some of the sour cream off my face. For a second as I looked at my index finger, a brief flashback played before my eyes.

_Five stood up, smirked and scooped out a handful of cream. “So, it’d be childish of me to, I don’t know…throw this in your face?”_

_The almost evil look on his face told me he wasn’t bluffing. “Five I swear-”_

Splat.

_Cream went everywhere._

_“Oh, you asked for it,” I replied, a fire starting in my belly. I scooped out cream from the bowl and threw it at him, cream splattering all over his face and uniform._

Andy reached out his hand and spread the sour cream over my face.

“Stop it, Five!” I giggled. Andy’s face fell slightly warped confusedly before I realised what I’d said.

“Five?” Andy asked.

I shook my head. Had the memory been that vivid that I’d spoken it into reality? “Sorry Andy. It just slipped out,” I managed to get out.

_Ring ring!_

The house phone chimed loudly from the hallway. “I’ll get it!” I said quickly.

I heard Jude say from her hiding spot in the kitchen, “Is it safe for the sour cream to come out?” as I lifted the faded red phone off the receiver and held it to my ear.

“Hello?” I asked. It never ceased to amaze me how ugly patterned wallpaper from the Nineties was, especially considered our hallway walls were plastered in it.

“Izzie?” a familiar voice drawled down the phone.

“Klaus! How are you my dear?” I greeted him happily. I hadn’t been expecting the call, but it was welcomed nonetheless.

“I’m doing fine Iz,” he dragged out. His voice was strangely slow and melodious; a sure-fire way of telling me that he was high.

I rolled my eyes. “Which institute has the pleasure of your company this week?”

Klaus chuckled down the line and there was a crinkling noise on his end that indicated he was turning his head. “I don’t know, somewhere in Ohio I think.”

“You think?” I asked incredulously.

“Around the direction of Ohio at least,” he drawled out.

I chuckled at this. “You’re such a free spirit.”

“Can’t chain me down baby.”

“Nah, you’d like that, you kinky bitch.”

Klaus gasped loudly. “Why are you calling me out like that?”

“I mean, would you say no to it if someone offered to?”

There was a moment of brief hesitation. “Eh, fair point.”

I sat down on the black chair we’d put beside the table that the phone was placed on top of. “I just know you too well, Klaus.”

“I’d hope you did, we’ve known each other long enough.”

“It’s been what, nearly twenty years?”

“Oh, how time flies,” he said dreamily.

I let out a low chuckle. “What’s the update on your life this week?”

“Oh, same old, same old. There’s something important happening here tonight…oh yeah, I forgot to tell you! Turn on your TV and get to a news channel.”

I scooched my chair away from the phone as the cord attaching the handset to the receiver extended to accommodate this. From where I’d moved my chair to, I could see through the living room door to our television screen.

“The news has just started, they’re making their way through the headlines,” I said down the phone, “what’s going on Klaus?” I queried.

“Maybe it’s big news over here but not for you,” Klaus replied. I could hear him biting his fingernails, which was a common tick of his.

“It’d help if I knew what I was looking for,” I huffed.

“You’ll know it when you see it.”

“Know it when I – oh,” I broke off suddenly as I read the words on the television. Flashing across the screen was a livestreamed video from the States. In big white letters against a crimson background read the following.

‘Eccentric billionaire sets sights on the moon: sending his son into Space.’

I nearly dropped the phone. Recent pictures of Hargreeves and Luther popped up as the news anchor talked. The livestream was showing an image of a rocket with a familiar umbrella logo etched onto the side of it. “Klaus, I’m gonna need a bit of explanation here,” I said once I’d recovered from the shock of what I was seeing.

He sniffed loudly. “Oh, uh, so long story short, Luther’s heading to space,” he explained.

“I can see that,” I said through clenched teeth, “why the sudden fascination in the moon? And why send Luther? Isn’t he the only one of us who’s still living at the Academy?”

“The only one who’s still loyal to dear old dad,” Klaus simpered mockingly.

“But why? I knew your dad liked space, but Luther was – is – his golden boy. Why would he get rid of him?”

“You’re seriously asking me about how my father thinks?” I could imagine him raising his eyebrow at this.

I cocked my head at this. “Valid, but I thought Luther was still going on missions and everything.”

“Maybe the old man wanted to pack it in with the Academy. It wasn’t really going anywhere because all of us who were sane hightailed it out of there.”

I made a face at this. “You’re calling yourself sane compared to Luther?”

“Leaving the Academy was the one sane thing I’ve done in my adult life,” Klaus bounced back.

The news changed. “Turn it up!” I demanded one of my friends to do.

Andy’s head popped into the doorway, hanging off the back of the sofa that faced the TV and also happened to lie right beside the door. “Why?” he asked through a mouthful of fajita.

“Just do it, Andy,” I snapped short temperedly at him. There was a flash of hurt in his features, but he grabbed the remote and turned up the volume regardless.

“…and here we are, counting down to blast off. T-minus ten seconds,” a muffled voice crackled through the TV. It sounded just like it had just been lifted out of an old tape from the old Apollo missions.

“Mission control, we are a-go,” another voice added.

“Lift off in five, four, three, two, one…” a female voice counted down.

A white cloud erupted beneath the rocket at the mention of ‘one’. Brilliant orange flames came into view as the rocket pushed its way upwards into the sky, soaring against the power of gravity.

The television continued to make noises but that faded into the background. “Are you watching this, Klaus?”

“I am,” he breathed, “I can’t believe Luther’s going to space!”

Another headline popped up on to the television screen but it was too small for me to read all of it. “Andy, what does that new headline say?” I asked him, pointing in the direction of the new headline.

“Oh, it says ‘Conspiracy theory: Reginald Hargreeves, esteemed scientist and founder of the Umbrella Academy, sends son into space just weeks after near death experience.’”

“What?!” I yelled.

“Whoa, whoa, Izzie, where was the need?” I heard Klaus almost weep.

“Klaus, you haven’t had any contact with Luther recently, have you?” I asked him hurriedly.

Klaus scoffed. “What do you think?”

I pursed my lips in annoyance at him. “You know, I’d like you a whole lot more if you were capable of giving me a straight answer at times.”

“Babe, nothing about me is straight.”

“When was the last time you did hear from him?” I asked irritably. Andy cast me a worried look and I waved him off.

Klaus made a popping sound with his lips as he contemplated his answer. “Two years ago maybe? It’s hard to remember, everything starts to blur together in my head.”

It was the tone of his voice that worried me. “Klaus, how high are you right now?”

Klaus laughed in response. “The usual,” he said dreamily.

“That makes no sense,” I replied tersely. How on earth was he getting drugs inside of a rehab facility? I took a deep breath before getting back to the topic at hand. “Do you think there’s any truth in this claim?”

“What, that Dad sent Luther to the moon?”

Klaus’s mind was starting to slip under the influence. I wouldn’t get much more lucid information out of him tonight. “That Luther had a near death experience?”

There was a clinking side on the other end of the phone. “I don’t know,” he replied, his voice worryingly distorted, “Luther would do anything for Dad. The level of loyalty he has for a father that was only interested in him because he was strong never made sense to me.”

There was a slipping sound followed quickly by a loud bang on the other end of the phone. “Klaus?” I asked worriedly. He had dropped the phone. “Klaus?” I shouted in panic, rising to my feet.

I heard footsteps on the other end. The phoneline crackled as the handset was lifted. “Hello, Mister Hargreeves can’t come to the phone at the moment. Can I take a message?” a voice chirped.

“Hi,” I said cautiously, “are you looking after Klaus right now?”

“Yes, we are. He’s just fallen asleep,” the voice, obviously female, added quickly – too quickly for her to be telling the truth.

“Well, could you maybe get him on an I.V. drip or something? I think he’s overdosed,” I replied, not buying into her obvious lie.

“We’re well attuned to Mister Hargreeves’ needs in our facility. His father’s estate pays us handsomely to do so. Now, if you don’t mind, Mister Hargreeves will call you back when he gets the chance to,” the voice politely rattled off to me.

“But–” I protested.

“Goodbye!” And then the line went dead.

I instantly redialled the number to try and get more information about Klaus.

“Hi, I’m calling about one of your patients, Klaus Hargreeves?” I said as soon as I heard that the other end of the line had engaged.

“We can’t discuss patient details over the phone,” came the gruff reply.

“Wait! Can you at least tell me if he’s okay?” I begged, trying to delay the inevitable dialling tone that would show I’d been disconnected.

There was silence on the line. “He’ll be fine,” came the grim response. The line went dead once again.

I sat back in my seat and watched as Luther’s rocket headed further into the sky. I rubbed my hands down my face out of stress and then shifted the thumb and forefinger of my right hand to pinch the silver disc on my necklace between them. Rubbing the surface of the silver always brought me comfort but the silver’s shine suffered as a result. “Klaus, if you don’t end up managing to kill yourself, you’re going to kill me with worry,” I whispered to myself as Luther barrelled into Space.

* * *

_A skip through time_

The next few months were tough on Klaus and I’s relationship. His body had finally reached the point where it couldn’t cope with all of the chemicals he pumped into his bloodstream and the toxins he inhaled from smoking God-knows-what. Phone calls, which up to this point happened every week without fail, were missed.

I couldn’t up and leave to go and search for him because I had my commitments at home that I couldn’t shake off and Klaus was basically nomadic at this point. At least when I was at home, whether in my student house or parent’s home, he could contact me because he had my details. I, however, relied on him remembering those details because I had no way of contacting him due to his lack of having a permanent address.

Calls were spotty. Our chats were sometimes cut short by my busy life or, frighteningly, Klaus flatlining again. I knew Hargreeves was still looking out for him by making sure his medical expenses were taken care of and that his dad must have been keeping an eye on where he was (or at least someone with access to the Hargreeves fortune did) but that brought me little comfort. Images of Klaus lying dead somewhere frequently crossed through my mind and they were only alleviated when I heard his voice down the end of the phone.

Allison was a household name. Her picture was everywhere – magazines, billboards, television screens. She was married now and had a daughter – Claire, I think her name was. Out of all of us, she was doing the best for herself.

Luther was, of course, on the moon. Conspiracy theories always swirled around Hargreeves and they had stormed around him in the weeks following the rocket launch, but more exciting headlines eventually pushed their way to the fore.

Diego was the one that I had no idea about. Klaus had said about him becoming a vigilante, a ‘sword for hire’ if you will. He had also said he’d heard Diego was a janitor, but seeing as this was Klaus we were talking about, who knew what the real story was. His brain had seen some things, whether it was the Dead or whatever the hell he saw when he was hopped up on drug cocktails.

Vanya had also been difficult to track down, but less so than her brother. I think she was part of an orchestra and, according to Yelp, was also a highly rated violin tutor. There was, of course, the whole ‘selling out her family for money’ thing when she’d published her book. The book had been successful to the point where she’d gone a couple of tours with it. Then once its popularity faded, she returned to her life of tutoring. She also wasn’t living in the apartment she’d had when she’d initially moved out. She still lived in the city, just a few miles away from where her first apartment had been.

Then there was me. My big news was that I was ageing normally again. As in, a year passed, and I aged a year. My cells had finally recovered from something that happened to me over half of my lifetime ago. It had been a long, long time coming. My twenty-ninth birthday came and went and I had the body of a sixteen-year-old.

My brother Louis got married. Then he knocked up his wife and popped out a set of ginger-haired twins, who made for the most adorable nephews. Anna officially became Doctor Reilly and was working towards her dream of being the ‘real life Cristina Yang.’

I got my masters and then started into teacher training. My masters had highlighted to me that I was not built for laboratory work and I think I finally found out why: it had been because I had been a lab rat to Hargreeves for my entire childhood. I had a real passion for biology and thought, why not go into teaching? So, I did. Despite all the comments about how I didn’t look my age and how on multiple occasions I’d been confused as a student rather than the teacher, I got my qualifications and then had the opportunity to teach abroad.

Dubai. London. Amsterdam. A Mercy Ship for a couple of months while it toured Oceania and I taught the crew’s kids while they distributed medical help and disaster relief where they were needed.

I had a good life. I enjoyed having the freedom to make my own choices. I liked that I had grown to love myself for who I was and that I hadn’t needed to use any of my Academy training in the real world. The most it had come to was charging my laptop when the power went out or making Anna’s hair go static just to mess with her (it didn’t go over well with her, she loves her hair).

I had made a life for myself. The Academy had dispersed and its members had found their identity outside of it. Our lives were our own, and we had taken that freedom and run with it since the moment we’d laid hands on it.

We felt like we’d run so far from each other and put such a great distance between our new lives and our old ones. Yet what we didn’t know was that this was all an illusion, a false reality. Because while we’d been running, the universe had made it to we were running on a treadmill, making us think that we were getting somewhere but forever remaining in the same place.

As much as we hated to admit it, we would always be the Umbrella Academy. The black ink on our wrists stood testament to that, no matter how much the tattoo faded.

* * *

 _The twenty second of March 2019, GMT 5:30AM_ _: Penny in the air._

_Brrrring!_

The phone rang out aggressively against the peaceful stillness of the early morning. Anna and I had moved in together after I’d gotten back from my time teaching on the Mercy Ship. Our parents had converted our garage into a flat for Niall when he moved back home, but now Anna and I had made use of it since Niall got hitched. Anna was working in the Area Hospital nearby and I had needed somewhere to land back on my feet after two years of international teaching.

It was a little cramped, but we made do. Downstairs was our kitchen and living area and upstairs were our rooms and bathroom. The heating system tended to go on the fritz at times and that meant having to make the incredibly long and arduous journey back over to the main house on the colder evenings. The journey was only a fifteen-metre walk, but at one o’clock in the morning with rain pelting from the heavens and only pyjamas for cover, it felt much longer.

The phone was downstairs in the living room, which opened into the kitchen. There was an odd mismatch of old furniture that Mum had moved in when she’d gotten the main house redecorated. A brown velour sofa sat next to a leather two-seater (that was half-broken from when Niall had had a party) and the kitchen table and chairs were made of basic white plastic that Dad had built from Ikea.

It wasn’t much, but it was home. I rushed down the stairs while throwing my fuzzy grey dressing gown over an old university t-shirt and red plaid trousers that were beginning to fray at the knees. Still, they were the comfiest pyjama bottoms that I owned and therefore weren’t going anywhere anytime soon.

My bare feet hit the stone floor with a slap. The cold from the stone zapped up through my legs and made my whole body shiver, so I quickly popped on Anna’s bright pink unicorn-shaped slippers and flicked the switch on the wall beside the stairs that activated the downstairs lights. All of this went on and the phone was still chiming away. I thanked whoever was watching over me that Anna was on night shift right now because otherwise I would have to face her wrath for letting the phone ring this long while she was sleeping.

I muttered out a string of strong curse words that would make my mum’s face turn pink and make her demand me to go to church on Sunday. I was, of course, living in a country where Christianity permeated all aspects of society and my parents were quite religious, but I wasn’t sure how much of it had sunk in over the years. That was another thing that had changed when I had returned home from the Academy, as Hargreeves had labelled religion as ‘something to learn about, but not to be actively participated in’. He ranked learning how to dance more highly than religion, which tells you all you need to know about his priorities.

After cursing, I eventually grabbed the phone. “Whoever this is, you’d better have a damned good reason for waking me before I have to go teach science to some hormonal teenage gremlins who have nothing better to do than run their mouths and day-dream during my classes for six hours a day,” I grumbled irritably down the phone.

“I-I don’t know whether I have the correct contact details or not, but is this the telephone number for the Reilly residence?” a polite voice inquired. The voice sounded familiar…dangerously familiar.

“Yes, this is the Reilly residence,” I answered bewilderedly. Maybe it was because my mind was foggy and slow because of the abrupt wake up call, but there was something about this voice that I couldn’t quite place.

“Oh good! I was hoping our intelligence was correct,” the voice continued.

This set me on edge. “Intelligence?” I questioned in a slightly aggressive tone. “Who is this? Why are you calling me at this ungodly hour?”

I heard a deep exhale of breath come from the person on the other end of the line. “My my, how your voice has changed yet is still so familiar. Your accent has gotten so much stronger since you left.”

Then it clicked. “Pogo?” I asked perplexedly. My grip on the phone, which I didn’t realise that I was squeezing it in a death grip, loosened. The tendons in my hand thanked me for the release.

There was a faint chuckle that crackled through the line. “Miss Isabel, it’s wonderful to hear your voice.”

“Pogo!” I exclaimed happily. My feet did a little tap dance against the floor and the silver horns of the unicorns of Anna’s slippers wiggled happily. The sleepy fog that had clouded my mind evaporated instantly and rendered me completely lucid. “Oh my goodness it’s been so long!”

“It has indeed, Miss Isabel.”

Then the question that I had wanted to ask bubbled through my mouth. “Wait, how did you get this number?”

“Master Hargreeves kept intelligence on all of you since the moment you walked out of the Academy doors,” Pogo replied. I couldn’t help but note how weary his voice sounded. There was more to it than just the tiredness of age, but I didn’t want to probe.

“Okay, that’s not creepy at all,” I replied sarcastically.

“He deemed it necessary.”

I let out a snort. “Does that mean he’s kept track of all of Allison’s movies? I swear, if I find out that there’s a single copy of a rom-com of hers in his study, I’ll die a happy woman.” There was silence on the end of the phone. “Pogo?” I asked hesitantly. The silence was making me concerned that I’d said something insensitive.

The silence continued. I looked at the watch on my wrist and saw that the golden seconds hand was stationary against the black face of the watch.

“And I just replaced the batteries for this too,” I complained aloud at my watch stopping, forgetting that I was holding the phone.

“Oh, it’s nothing to do with its batteries, dear.”

I let out a scream and dropped the phone. It clattered to the ground and remained intact. My heart started beating so quickly out of shock that it was hard to tell where one beat ended and the next started. A cold sweat broke out across my body and my blood ran like ice through my veins. Why, you may ask?

Because the voice who had spoken didn’t belong to Pogo. The voice hadn’t come from the phone. It had come from behind me.

I spun around to face whoever had spoken. A lady in dark clothes with red accents stood there, her outfit accented by a heavy spider-shaped broach on her left breast. She lifted a black lace veil away from her face and tucked away a few strands of silver-white hair that had gone awry. Dangling from her mouth was a long, thin cigarette that made her look like Cruella DeVil from that Disney movie. In one hand she carried a black briefcase.

As my surprise faded, my survival instincts kicked in. A familiar crackling of electricity filled the air and I saw it streak across my skin like miniature lightning strikes. “Who are you?” I demanded, flicking open my hands as I assumed a fighting stance. Orbs of electricity gathered in my palms and I could feel the power pulsing eagerly.

The woman simply looked me up and down and lifted an elegant eyebrow at me. She pulled the cigarette out of her mouth and sat down on the velour sofa, set the briefcase beside her and crossed her legs with a sigh.

This puzzled me. The amount of power that I was generating right now should have intimidated anyone who was in their right mind. Yet she was looking at me tranquilly, amusedly even, like she was a patient parent waiting for their child to snap out of their temper tantrum.

“Who are you?” I demanded as the atmosphere snapped and popped. “How did you get in here?” I continued, casting a glance to the locked front door. That was the only way in or out of this building and the windows were also untampered with. The alarm system hadn’t registered any abnormal movement and so remained silent. It was like she had teleported directly into my home.

She simply lifted her cigarette into the air. A zap of electricity exploded right beside the end of it and caused it to ignite. She then placed the other end of it in her mouth and tendrils of white smoke fell from her mouth.

“Why don’t you sit down and we can have a talk?” she asked calmly, like we were good friends and she was pooping around for tea. She gestured to the leather two-seater that sat opposite her.

I glared at her menacingly. “Why are you here? What do you want with me?”

“Oh honey, it’s not what I _want_ with you, it’s what I could do _for_ you,” she replied in an annoyingly even tone. “I represent something known as the Temps Commission. I’m here to offer you a job.”

“Well too bad, I’ve already got one,” I retorted.

“Yes, teaching teenagers how a plant reproduces and how osmosis works,” she replied in the same tone, but this time it came across as she was mocking me.

I shrugged my shoulders. “Someone’s got to teach them.”

The woman let out a tinkling laugh. “Yes, I’m sure they do. But you have talents that lie elsewhere,” she said, pointing to my ignited hands in a sweeping motion.

I slowly stepped out of my fighting stance. The electrical power on my hands dissipated but the air still crackled menacingly. “What do you want? I’ve to be at work in a few hours and I was also in the middle of a conversation before you let yourself in.”

The woman laughed. “My dear, I thought I had made myself clear when I said about your watch. But let me give you another hint: you needn’t worry about being later for work, because we have all the _time_ in the world. Penny in the air?”

All the time in the world. My watch that I had just replaced the batteries for. “Are you saying that you’ve managed to somehow freeze time?”

“Penny drops,” the woman replied victoriously with a smile that reminded me of a vicious animal.

“How have you managed that?”

“Oh, it’s very complicated theory that I don’t understand,” she replied, puffing away at her cigarette, “but the people I represent have been keeping tabs on you for quite some time now. They think you have potential in our Research and Development sector.”

I scoffed at her. “Seems like you’re not the only ones keeping tabs on me.”

“You mean Reginald Hargreeves, right? The man who collected supernatural children?” she said, leaning back into the sofa.

I threw my hands up lightly. “Collected is probably the best word for it.”

“Yeah, that guy was no parent,” she said, emphasising the ‘t’ of parent.

“So, you can interrupt the flow of time, appear anywhere you want, and yet you’re not satisfied with that and want me to come along and help develop more stuff?”

The woman ‘hmm’-d and ‘ha’-d for a moment. “You’ve got a lot of potential in that area that we’d like to help you make good on.”

I let out a huff of humourless laughter. “If you’d been keeping good enough tabs on me, you’d know I hate lab work. Research isn’t my thing.”

“But you haven’t heard what we can offer you,” the woman simpered.

“I don’t want to know and I don’t care. I’m happy enough as it is,” I replied politely, but with a sharp edge of annoyance slicing through my tone.

“Teaching snotty brats five days a week? You could do better than that. You come with me and you could be _extraordinary_ ,” she replied.

“Again, your intelligence is a little flawed. I’ve spent my whole life wishing I was just ordinary. I’m happy with ordinary, or at least happier than when I was considered otherwise,” I extended my right hand out in front of me and pointed my index and middle fingers towards her. Current flickered into a ball on my fingertips. “Now, kindly get out of my house, you damned puppy stealer.”

The woman’s eyes widened at me, but not out of fear. It was the kind of look you got from a teacher after giving them attitude (a look that I had perfected over time). “The Cruella analogy is a little weak there, dear,” she replied, holding her forefinger and thumb together in a pinching motion to emphasise the weakness of my statement.

“I don’t care. Get out,” I said threateningly.

“We haven’t even heard of the health care benefits working for the Commission can give you,” she continued, speaking so casually as if she were talking about the weather.

“Imma count to three, lady, or you get blasted with a thousand volts,” I threatened, my body glowing with electrical current once more that made the glare I was giving this lady more intimidating as the lightning streaked across my skin and reflected into my eyes.

“Or that you’ll only have to work ten years until retirement!”

“One.”

“The great holidays?”

“Two,” I continued, pushing more power through and into my skin. The current no longer streaked across my body, but extended from it and into the space around me, giving me a frighteningly ethereal appearance.

“I know where Five is!” she said in a sing song, her hair standing on end from the static power I was generating.

I lowered my hand and the power I was producing lessened as my concentration broke. I could feel the exhaustion beginning to set in as I knew I was reaching my limits and was close to overstretching myself. It had been a long time since I’d needed to use this power offensively, and produce such a large amount.

“What?” I questioned bewilderedly.

The woman smoothed down her hair. It brought me joy when she flinched in pain as she got a nasty shock from doing so. “I know where Five is.”

“Yeah, I heard you the first time,” I replied shortly, “Five disappeared years ago. Time travel gone wrong.”

The woman laughed. “That’s one way to put it.”

I continued to look at her suspiciously. “If you’re trying to recruit me to this…Commission thingamajig, wouldn’t you have brought him with you to convince me to join? That’s some bargaining chip you could have had there. Or, why not get him to come and do this instead? Give you the morning off.” I folded my arms and stared her down, but that same infuriatingly tranquil look she’d worn since she’d arrived was reflected back at me.

The woman sighed. “Five is a _very_ busy agent, our busiest, in fact. This task would’ve been beneath him. Plus, this kind of work isn’t even in his division! And you know how he hates to do other people’s work,” she replied, flicking ash at the end of her cigarette onto the floor by her feet.

As a teacher, I’d developed a sixth sense of when I was being lied to, or that I was hearing only part of the whole story. This woman was good, very good at talking the talk, but Five? Really? Was it possible that she was telling the truth, or that she was very skilled in the art of deception?

“So, this Commission you work for…what does it do?” I asked, finally moving from where I’d been standing near the phone and sitting down on the two-seater.

“We oversee and manage the time stream,” she replied.

“So, you’re kind of like the Time Lords in _Doctor Who_? You oversee the flow of time but, unlike the Time Lords, when something happens, you intervene?”

“Only when deemed necessary to keep the timestream intact,” she explained as she bounced the leg that was crossed over the top of the other back and forth.

I cocked my head and made a face. “Okay, I have to admit that sounds really cool.”

“A sci-fi nerd’s wet dream,” the woman chimed in.

This time I made a disgusted face. “Gross, did not need that image in my head,” I complained, “but if Five was a part of your organisation, why didn’t he just drop himself back into a normal timeline?”

“Because that’s not how it works, dear. Time is delicate, it’s virginal, you can’t defile it,” she explained.

As this conversation went on, I got a better feel for this woman. I still didn’t fully believe her. “Why hasn’t Five made an appearance in this timeline since he disappeared? Isn’t that exactly what he would do if he messed up time travel and wanted to fix what he broke?”

“He has a contract with us,” the woman answered, smoke puffing from her mouth. The cigarette was over halfway burnt through. “Once he finishes his five-year contract, he can retire to a place and time of his choosing.”

“And his contract hasn’t finished yet?” I replied curiously. I knew that whatever her answer was to this question would determine my decision.

She shook her head and took a long drag of her cigarette as she did. “No, he has a little while to go until his contract runs out. Although, I’m pretty sure I know what his retirement plans are,” she replied in an all-too-knowing voice.

That did it. That made my mind up there and then. “You talk a good game, whatever your name is, but I have to decline. Thanks for the offer though, tell Five I said hi,” I said, brushing off her offer.

Her face fell. “But – but you have to say yes,” she replied, laughing disbelievingly at my answer.

I shook my head and pouted. “Well, I’ve said no. Sorry to disappoint.”

“Why?” she asked. This was the first time I’d seen her break her cool demeanour, and this was only a small change.

“Because as well as you claim to know Five, I knew him – _know_ him better. And I know that Five is too headstrong and God-damned stubborn for his own good to take orders from anyone other than himself. He’s not someone’s puppet, he’s never been that, and if you knew Five, you’d know that what I’m saying is true. And,” I said, stopping to take a deep breath to break up my little speech, “I know that he fixes his mistakes as soon as he makes them. If you have the resources you say you have, he would have used them already to fix the mistake he made with time travel when we were kids. He wouldn’t wait out a contract to get to that.

So, while you have clearly done your research on Five, I don’t believe a word you’ve said. This is a trap or game that you’re trying to play to get me to come with you, and you decided to use the idea of Five as bait to try and lure me in. It was a clever ploy I’ll admit, but I’m not falling for this bullshit bait of yours. Now, once again, get out of my freakin’ house _now_ ,” I finished with a quiet rage bubbling through my words. I pointed to the door without breaking eye contact with her.

The woman’s composure faltered. “No, you _have_ to come,” she said. Her voice shook slightly, like she needed me to come with her otherwise there’d be consequences for her.

I stood up from the sofa, looking as aloof and intimidating as I could in my dressing gown and unicorn slippers before turning my back to her. “Too bad, I’ve got my own free will and you can’t force me,” I shot back and waved over my shoulder at her.

There was a click of heels against stone as she stood, followed by a light rustling of fabric and another, more threatening click. “You’ll come with me,” she said, conviction running deep in her voice, “or I’ll shoot you in the head right here and now.”

Although panic shot through me as I turned and stared down the chamber of the gun, I willed my expression to stay aloof. I let out a derisive scoff. “You’re clearly playing yourself in this, lady. You need me for something, so you can’t kill me. Am I right?”

The woman’s hand shook slightly. “Well, you are the preferred target, but you’re not indispensable,” she replied lightly. Her red lacquered fingernails sparkled dangerous beneath the lights embedded in the ceiling as they held the deadly weapon.

“Not indispensable? You flatter me,” I replied and placed my hands on my chest with a flourish. This was all an act: my heart was beating wildly in my chest and there was definitely sweat beading on my back.

“Come with me or else,” she threatened coldly, advancing towards me with the gun held steadily out in front of her.

It was now or never. Yes or no. Then the thought popped into my head. What would Five do? Would he submit, or would he fight? And the answer was a simple one.

I gathered all of my remaining energy, all of my remaining will, and channelled it into power. I felt the ground beneath me begin to vibrate and a glow began to brighten around me to become more white in colour than yellow-gold. Lightning snapped in the air like some sort of angry alligator and power rushed into my hands.

“Looks like we’ve got a bit of a standoff here,” the woman commented. Her appearance was calm, but there was a small spark of uncertainty in her eyes.

“Get out,” I growled, my voice amplified by the power.

The woman threw her hands up in the air. “Oh well, it was worth a shot.”

She pointed the gun at me determinedly. As the world slowed down, I heard my heartbeat ringing in my ears. Everything else fell away into silence apart from that. I saw her finger start to pull the trigger, the tendon flexing as the finger exerted pressure on the dangerous switch.

I held my hands out in front of me to protect me from the bullet. Electricity was powerful offensive force in a fight, but defensively? That was where it failed. All I could do was pray that something would happen so I wouldn’t get my brains blown out.

There was a tingling in my fingertips. I felt like there were strings shooting out of them in the direction of the gun, and these strings carried with them a current. The current ran through them and into the gun and suddenly I could feel inside of the material of the gun, like I was touching it on a molecular level. It was like I could feel the molecules, the very atoms, that made up the gun and gave it mass pulsing away. The electrical current that I was producing through the invisible strings flowed into the atoms to the point where I could almost touch individual atoms.

I clenched my fists and the strings retreated. They felt weightier this time, like they were carrying something other than electricity. There was a flash and a surge of power went through me, completely draining my body of any and all available energy. The lights in my living room exploded and glass splinters flew everywhere, and then the world paused.

I watched as the woman’s gun began to glow white and dissipate into embers, like sparks flying out of a fire. She watched in fear as the metal in her hand disappeared until all she was holding was its handle.

The smell of burning filled my nostrils. Whether it was burning materials, burnt out fuses, burnt hair or skin, I couldn’t discern. An iron tang filled my mouth. My nose started gushing and when I reached up to my nose to stop the flow, my palm came away red. A horrible feeling of nausea overwhelmed me and my body crumpled like paper before I puked up what must have been everything in my digestive system from my stomach to my colon onto the floor. I looked to my right arm and the sleeve of my dressing gown had been completely burnt away to the elbow. The skin was red and irritated and there was a small partial thickness burn just above my wrist, which was angry and had blisters starting to form.

None of that compared to the pain there was in my head. A bloodcurdling scream ripped through my lungs as my brain felt like it was on fire. It felt like someone had taken the top of my skull off and proceeded to dump lava in. I gripped onto my head tightly as I lay on the floor and my body writhed madly.

It could have been seconds, it could have been hours, but eventually the pain faded to the point where I could open my eyes. The woman still stood there holding what remained of the gun in her hand. The look on her face was indiscernible. I didn’t know whether she was scared or amused or shocked or fascinated.

My breathing slowed as the burning in my head lessened. The contents of my digestive system covered the floor in front of where I lay and some of it had absorbed into my grey dressing gown along with some blood, causing the fluffy material to clump together wetly and turning it an odd shade of beige.

The woman merely picked up her suitcase and walked over to me so that she was hovering over me. Her violently red stilettos clicked viciously against the pale stone floor. I was helpless right now and if she wanted to finish me off, now was the ideal time to do so. Instead, she dropped the remains of the gun into the pool of vomit streaked with blood beside me. As it hit the ground, it sent splatters of puke into my face.

She tsked and tittered above me while smoothing down her charged hair. “You claim to know Five so well, but he’s changed since you knew him. Tragic, really. Oh well. This was a long shot at best.” She opened the suitcase and light poured out of it. “I’ll be seeing you again, I’m sure of it.”

She dropped the end of her cigarette to the vomit-covered floor and crunched it lightly under her foot. She opened her briefcase, there was a flash of light that illuminated the room, and she was gone.

I looked to my wristwatch. The golden seconds hand had begun to move once more, broken out of its temporary stasis. The handset of the telephone lay on the ground a few metres behind where I lay. Time was moving forwards again after having been stopped by that woman’s arrival.

Before I could even think about how insane it was that a woman had just stopped time, there was a quiet mumbling sound coming from the phone. The line was still engaged. Pogo was on the other end of the call and while I’d been stuck with that woman, he had frozen. Now that time had unfrozen, he was likely continuing our conversation about…what was it again? Allison’s movies?

I rolled my body across the floor to the phone. Streaks of vomit squeezed out of my clothes and onto the stone as I did. I held my burnt arm up out of the way to stop myself from rolling onto it, which made manoeuvring my body over the floor to the phone difficult.

I picked up the handset to hear Pogo chatting away. “…not that I’m aware of any such material belonging to Master Hargreeves,” he said cheerily.

“Pogo,” I rasped down the phone. I coughed as my throat stung from saying the words and some left-over vomit irritated my throat.

“Miss Isabel?” the simian asked me worriedly. He knew that something was wrong just from my voice.

“Pogo, I’ve just done something I’ve never been able to do before,” I said hoarsely.

Pogo was silent, as if contemplating what I was about to say. “Tell me, Miss Isabel.”

“Does Hargreeves have any notes on my powers?”

“He has many, he took detailed accounts regarding all of the Academy’s powers,” he replied questioningly.

“Yes, but about what I could possibly do,” I snapped. I could feel my emotions getting the better of me. I couldn’t be calm and collected. I was starting to freak out and I had every right to, and that meant I was starting to take it out on Pogo.

There was another silence, but this time it was heavy with anticipation. “What have you done, Miss Isabel?”

And so I recounted to him what had happened with the woman, with particular emphasis on her gun and how I’d made it disintegrate. As I spoke, I started to feel better. My stomach settled, the pain in my head subsided and the stinging in my throat receded to a tickle. There was a tingling in my arm from where the surface burn continued to blister.

“Pogo, I’ve never been able to do this thing before and I am _terrified_. Is there anything in Hargreeves’ notes about this?”

Pogo inhaled deeply and slowly. “Miss Isabel, I think it would be best if you returned to the Academy.”

I spluttered for a moment before regaining my composure. “You’re joking, right? Why can’t you just tell me over the phone?” What could possibly be so important in Hargreeves’ notes that I’d need to fly three thousand miles to get?

“There are files here that you would need to see in person, Miss Isabel. We only have one copy of these files and I‘m under strict instructions not to replicate them, so if the originals got lost in transport…”

“Right. I have to come to you,” I replied, disappointment evident in my voice.

“And I’m sure you will have questions afterwards,” Pogo reasoned.

I exhaled deeply as the realisation of it all sank in. Then a question popped into my head – the most obvious of all questions that I should have asked at the beginning of the conversation. “Pogo, why did you call me? I mean, I’m not really complaining, the timing ended up being perfect, but why? I haven’t heard from you in years.”

There was an ominous pause on his end. “It…concerns Master Hargreeves.”

I looked at the phone in revulsion as if it were Hargreeves himself. The pause signalled that whatever news he was going to tell me wasn’t good. “Am I going to care about what you’re about to say?” I asked callously. As soon as the words left my mouth I winced: that was cold, even if my negative feelings towards him were justified.

“Miss Isabel, Master Hargreeves has passed away.”

* * *

A/N School's out for winter! Hope you guys are doing good and keeping safe, and the same to your loved ones. Who is the mystery character who broke into is Izzie’s house? Also now the Hargeeves is dead, we’ll be seeing our favourite characters back soon, so stay tuned!

This chapter's question for you guys is: If you could have the power of anyone in the Academy, whose would you have?

Thank you all for sticking with this story, leaving kudos and comments. They really inspire me (I say in every chapter!!!).

For elasz0107 – she wasn’t rumoured by Alison to forget her family, she was rumoured to forget will actually come up in later chapters, and I don't want to spoil anything so I will just leave it at that. Sorry for any confusion!

Chapter playlist:

Chapter title- Lyrics from Viva La Vida by Coldplay.

Space bound- Eminem.

Have a safe Christmas everyone!

Love, SunnySci :)).


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